My Hungry Heart
by Kaori-chan2
Summary: Of dark jungles, stealing monkeys, lunatic pygmies and unexpected love. 30 kisses project. Luffy x Vivi.
1. Lost

**Title: **My Hungry Heart**  
Author: **Alinasan aka Kaori-chan2**  
Pairing: **Monkey D. Luffy & Nefeltari Vivi**  
Fandom: **One Piece**  
Theme: **#01 - look over here  
**Rating: **PG13, I guess. Might go up later on. cough**  
Disclaimer: **I don't own any of the fabulous, perfect, godlike characters that will make an appearance in this story as I am most definitely not Eiichiro Oda.

**Notes: **Okay, I really overdid it with this. 18 pages in Word for just one single chapter. Makes me wonder what the rest will turn out like... Well, I hope someone will fight his way through this anyway. And please forgive me for any grammar mistakes, I'm german. :3  
The story takes place in the one week between Drum and Alabasta.

-- --

My Hungry Heart

**ONE: Lost**

**-- --**

"Oh, just great. First Little Garden, and now _this_."

Vivi sighed in irritation as she peered up at the high crowns of the giant rainforest trees that seemed much more distant than they really were in the thick, humid and frantically hot air of the boondocks. While she squeezed and squinted her eyes a little and held her hand out to avoid the sun shining through the trees to dazzle her all the more, she begun to fan cold air to her face with her other hand, hoping that she wouldn't sweat even more – her shirt was already soaked anyway.

"So we're really lost now?" asked the raven-haired captain from somewhere behind her in a hoarse gasp, also fanning air to himself with his straw hat. He was sitting cross-legged on a giant green root sprouting out from beneath the slick ground.

Vivi glanced over her shoulder, an apologetic frown on her face. "Seems so, Luffy-san. I'm sorry."

"Oh, _jeez_! See, that's why you should've left the lead to _me_ instead!" grumbled Luffy, glaring angrily at her. "I knew exactly which way we were supposed to head for."

"No offence, but your sense of orientation is about as useless as Mr. Bushido's," Vivi shot back, narrowing her eyes a little. When Luffy crossed his arms and wordlessly sulked at this, she sighed and fully turned around to him. "Look, I really am sorry, okay? It's just that you easily lose track of your path in _these_ kind," she wildly gesticulated with her finger about, "of surroundings. Each and every corner looks the same, not that there are any corners around to begin with."

Luffy, still sulky, waved it off. "Yeah, yeah, I get it." He wiped the sweat off his forehead and placed the straw hat back on his unruly black hair. "It's just that I don't like being stuck in places boring to death with no idea how to get out of here."

"Well, do you think _I _enjoy being lost? Who likes the idea of having no clue about the own whereabouts, anyway?" said Vivi in slight annoyance as she moved closer to the root where Luffy was sitting on. "I suggest we better find a way back to the ship. And _fast_. I really don't wanna still be stuck here when it gets dark … " She even shuddered at the mere thought of what beastly creatures were wandering around in these woods, lusting for prey.

"Yeah, sounds good to me," Luffy agreed as he hopped off the root. "I don't like this adventure at all. It's too hot, I can barely breath, and on top of all I'm hungry." He held up an empty box, looking on the brink of tears. "Pirate Lunch Box is already gone, too."

Vivi couldn't help but give a small giggle. "Then, we'll better find our way back as fast as possible," she said, turning around. From the corners of her eyes she saw Luffy stepping to her side, but instead of looking at him, she kept staring ahead where the small clearance was encircled by trees, bushes and lianas. Thoughtfully, she cocked her head and pointed ahead. "We came from over there, right? So it'd be better if we--"

"Nah, we came from _there_," Luffy interrupted determinedly, pointing to the right.

Vivi turned to the direction he pointed to in puzzlement. "Really?" She blinked, and doubtfully turned to the left. "Wasn't it rather … _that_ direction?"

Luffy opened his mouth to answer her back confidently, but just one moment after he snapped his jaw back shut as his expression also formed to one of doubt. "Uh," he launched out, wavering. Then, he turned around and stemmed his hands in his sides, pointing with a nod of his head in the last remaining point of the compass. "Maybe we came from over there."

"So theoretically, we could've come from _anywhere_," sighed Vivi, desperately bringing up a hand to touch her forehead. "What a bummer. Just why didn't I memorize our way?"

Luffy turned around again and also gave a small sigh. A glance down to the princess to his left instantly told him that she could do with a little encouragement, "Well, I didn't memorize it either, so don't feel too bad." Vivi gave him an almost absurdly disbelieving look, making Luffy arch a brow in offense. "Oi! Don't give me that look!" he snorted. "I _could_ have memorized it if I wanted."

"Yeah, right," the bluette nodded wryly, rolling her eyes. Just when Luffy attempted an angry retort, she cut off any kind of argument by continueing with a sigh, "Well, we're going to just have to try it on a wing and prayer then." She haphazardly pointed in a random direction. "We'll go that way!"

Luffy narrowed his eyes when Vivi set forth without waiting for an answer or even agreement at that. He barged after her, fairly annoyed. "Oi!" he yelled. "Why are _you_ deciding where we're heading?"

"Well, that's because I'm the leader," said Vivi.

"Who said that you were the leader!? I'm the captain, _I_ should decide!"

"You're not _my _captain, besides I'm more experienced than you!"

"That's not true!" Luffy glared imaginary daggers into her back. "I'm still the older one here!"

Vivi didn't prize him with even one look. "Physically maybe, but mentally _I'm _the one who's one year older," she said with gravely superiority.

He blinked in confusion. "Huh?"

"Oh gee," groaned the princess in irritation, rolling her eyes once more. "Women are two years ahead of men of the same age, okay?" Thereupon, Luffy only hissed a "Keh" at her, wheron she sighed and turned around with a frown. Her twirl was so sudden that Luffy couldn't brake in time, thus bumping straight into her. Shortly before an involuntary kiss could happen, Vivi took a big step back. "Why are we arguing that much, anyway? That's not like us at all, Luffy-san."

Luffy was a little taken by surprise at first, but quickly scratched the back of his head in embarrassement. "I dunno," he sighed. "It's just bugging me that I'm so damn hungry."

"And it's bugging _me_ that we lost our way," said Vivi. The weird thing about it really was that none of them was named Roronoa Zoro.

"Besides, it's ridiculously hot," complained the captain and let his straw hat slide down from his hair, letting it dangle from his neck. He pointed to the bead of sweat that ran down his cheek. "It's like I'm melting."

"Same here," sighed Vivi, plucking at her soaking wet top, which once had been white. "Alright, so we both have good reasons to be annoyed, but we shouldn't take that out on each other." She smiled a little bashfully up to him. "I'm sorry for jumping all over you, Luffy-san. You're the captain, so you should take the lead."

Luffy blinked in puzzlement at first, but then grinned and waved it off. "Nah, it's okay, I wasn't all that nice to you either after all," he admitted. "And about the lead... maybe it's better if _you_ do that." He looked away, knowing very well that he'd probably only lead them further into the jungle.

Vivi giggled into her hand. "Okay, if you say so," she grinned and turned around.

After they bestirred again and wordlessly sauntered next to each other for a few minutes, Luffy opened his mouth again, "You think the others are already looking for us?"

The princess barely visibly shook her head. "No, rather not," she said. "They're probably not even back themselves. After all, it's only been an hour or so since we left the Going Merry, I guess." She glanced at the sky as if she could actually read the time of day in the way the clouds were moving.

But unfortunately, the anticipated discovery of a fresh water lake failed to appear in the course of said past hour, even though that actually was the only reason they had dared to set a foot into the dark jungle in the first place. Since the pantry of the Going Merry was emptier than Crocodile's promises when it came to food and beverage, they had decided to land at the small, jungle-overgrown and apparently uninhabited island, although it was even too small for a magnetic field and thus was neither to be found on one of Nami's maps, nor was the Log Pose able to sense it. After they had drawn lots and Usopp kindly (and in a funk) agreed to guard the ship, they had set out into the thicket. Nami and Zoro, so that the swordsman wouldn't get lost and to help Nami carry her equipment, since she was eager to note the island down (Though, officially their job was to look for human life). Sanji and Chopper, to procure comestibles and search for new herbs along the way (The two of them were a great team, primarily because Chopper could tell the cook after just sniffing at the herbs one single time if they were edible or poisonous).

Which left only Luffy and Vivi to restock their store of water.

At first, it had been really fun: They were joking around, generally treated the whole thing like nothing but a new adventure, pretended to be some geezer pirates on treasure hunt, after that Luffy had given her crash course about beetles and before they knew, they had lost track of their actual job and above all the right way. Thinking back, Vivi should have coated their way with breadcrumbs like in Hansel and Gretel, but just like the birds in that fairy tale had eaten the crumbs, very different creatures would fulfill that role with pleasure in _this_ wood, which would lead to the worst case scenario: The beasts tracing them. Vivi really wasn't in the mood to get eaten, primarily since she still had way too much to take care of. Saving Alabasta, for example.

"So when do you think they'll notice that we're missing?" the captain eventually continued, almost a little insecure.

"Well, as soon as they're back, I guess," answered Vivi and then offered him a soothing smile. "No worries, Luffy-san. You're the captain. They wouldn't possibly cast off without the most important person on board, now would they?"

Luffy laughed somewhat nervously. "I didn't really mean it like that," he said, scratching his cheek. "I know that they'd never leave us behind. They're our nakama and I trust them completely." He grinned blithely at the princess. "Zoro's instantly gonna notice that we're lost, anyway. He knows about that stuff best out of all of us after all."

Vivi giggled. "You have a point there," she grinned back. Poor Mr. Bushido. Actually, he was lucky to be with Nami-san, but then again, the navigator had her own cruel measures to make the swordsman's life worse.

After another few silent minutes of just walking, Vivi noticed that it had suddenly gotten way hotter than before. Or was that just her? She brushed back her soaking wet, sky-blue bangs that were sticking to her forehead like bubblegum, and glanced at the sky in exhaustion. When she saw that the sun was shining in the vertex directly above them, she gave a desperate groan. Not only did that mean that it was late afternoon, which would mean that it would be dark in no time, it was also why she was sweating more and more.

As if Luffy just read her mind, he panted a spiritless, "Is it just me or did it suddenly get even hotter?"

Vivi, who was still staring crestfallen at the sky, shrugged her delicate shoulder at a loss. "It's really hotter than before," she murmured. "That's because the sun is closer now." Luffy groaned in exasperation, fabric rustled. Vivi turned around to him, knitting her brows. "It's gonna get dark soon, so – eh?"

With wide eyes and completely bewildered, the princess watched Luffy taking off his turquoise shirt and eventually placing it around his shoulders. He made a relieved noise and Vivi's jaw dropped down at the vision of his distinct abdominal muscles, moist with sweat. She didn't even notice how more and more blood rushed to her cheeks, her face getting even hotter than before (And it wasn't because of the sun this time).

Luffy, who noticed her stare, arched an eyebrow at her. "Vivi? What's with you?"

That was when the princess startled and snapped out of it. "W – why did you undress!?" she cried more shrill than intended and cleared her throat therupon.

"Well, 'cause I'm hot," the captain replied as if it was general knowledge, giving her a perplexed look.

_Oh God, damn right you are_, Vivi thought unconsciously, still gaping at his upper body. Then she quickly shook her head and hastily turned away. _Just where in heaven's name did THAT come from!? _Completely deranged, she began fanning air to herself with both hands, breathing in and out slowly before she murmured almost inaudibly, "Gods, it feels like I'm burning."

"Well, if you're _so_ hot," Luffy said with a naively innocent grin on his face, making Vivi's face flush even more, "you should also take off your shirt."

Just when the blood pressure of the princess had calmed down a little, it raced with lightning speed to the peak again as she whirled around in horror to gape at Luffy with wide eyes and crimson colored cheeks. "W … w – _wha_!?" Out of reflex, she crossed her arms over her breasts, the captain only arched an eyebrow at her actions. "Luffy-san! You … you pervert!"

Luffy blinked completely dumbfounded at her at first, before he yelled an offended, "What!? Why're you calling me a _pervert_ all of a sudden?"

"So _that _was your plan all along. But I'll have to disappoint you," Vivi snorted indignantly, without even dwelling on his question. "Unfortunately for you, I'm wearing a _bra_!"

Now was the moment where the captain lost her completely, but nevertheless a small blush crossed his cheeks. "Eh!?"

She turned away from him, a very high-pitched "Tch" emerging from her before she hissed, "So there'd be no point in taking off my shirt!"

"Wha … " Luffy started haggardly, but then paused when he eventually took in what she was refering to. He blinked at her back in puzzlement. "You're not seriously thinking that I just wanted to see your boobs all along, are you!?"

Though Vivi was slowly starting to feel stupid because of her claim, she wasn't going to let him put her off from her conviction and thus snorted once more. "You're just a guy after all," she downright spat. Terracotta had told her enough about guys for her to know that they would use any chance to get a glimpse of a girl's chest. "Why don't you just admit your, your," she paused for a more dramatic effect and to think up a fitting description, "_primitive sex drive_!"

The captain narrowed his eyes to an angry glare. "Now pipe down just a second, will you!" he yelled back. "Firstly, I only took off my shirt because I was hot. Secondly, I only suggested that you take your shirt off because _you_ were hot. And thirdly," he took a deep breath and as soon as he started to tell her the following, he realized that he was just saying it because he was so damn mad and that it, much to his wonder, wasn't the truth in the least, "I'm not interested in seeing you naked at all!"

"You're … _not_?" Vivi blinked at him in surprise and Luffy shook his head while he stubbornly glared back at her. And before she knew what she was saying, she burst out with her current, basically completely absurd, thought right off the bat, "Why not?"

That caught Luffy off guard and his features relaxed to a perplexed frown. "Why_ not_?" he repeated in utter bewilderment. And when he saw Vivi flushing crimson in sudden bursts, visibly shocked about herself, a teasing grin crept to his lips. "Really now, princess. Who's the real vert here?"

Vivi, who had found back her way to reality because of that, gave him a look that would have been worthy of a sphinx. "That's _PERvert_, you moron," she snapped gruffier than intended and not princess-like at all, turned on her heels and bestirred with her head held high.

"That's _PERRRvert_," Luffy mocked her almost inaudibly with a feigned female voice, trotting after her. Then he yelled louder, so that she heard him, "Just for the record: I _knew _that, okay!?"

-- --

"Naaami-swan!"

The navigator fought an exhausted smile to her lips, she really wasn't able to get out any more after that marathon march around the whole island. Even less could she understand how Sanji – that guy was wearing long jeans in _this_ heat? He must be nuts – could dance over the relatively far away Going Merry so overjoyed and bright as a button. She could see him spinning circles around his own axis, performing a _very_ ridiculous 'Dance of Love', reciting an absurdly cheesy love poem that made no sense at all, at which his voice got continuously higher and squeakier and cornier. Zoro already threateningly gritted his teeth next to her.

"My white dove of love! My frosted crepes suzette!" he called over to her enthusiatically, puffing small hearts of smoke out of his mouth and nose. "Oh, you most beautiful woman on the face of earth who even makes Aphrodite pale! How I missed you!"

She would never admit it, but she almost found it utterly exciting to listen to Sanji come up with the absolutely most stupid pet names in the mere course of a split second. Though, she thought, she should also take the possibility into consideration that late at night he could be sitting in his hammock, writing them all out of some book he had dug up in some pathetic book store on a random island. _The Great Book of Pet Names_ or something. Or _How to Scare Away a Woman Very Creatively_.

"Oi, Marimo!" growled Sanji when they were closer to the ship. Not only did his voice suddenly become more throaty and much deeper, his general personality had took such an enormous turn that no one but those who knew the cook very well would ever bargain for him to have ever been nice to anyone at all. "If you've harmed my Nami-san somehow while she was lovely enough to condescend to mime your babysitter, I'm gonna slaughter you!"

Zoro, who was fully packed with Nami's whole equipment (_She_ was only carrying a Log Pose around her wrist), glared stonecold death glares at the blond cook. "_You're_ the one I'm gonna harm when I come up there, ero-cook," he hissed in irritation.

Nami suddenly grinned darkly. "Babysitter?" she pondered aloud, her eyes flashing up mischievously. "A babysitter costs--"

"Don't even think it, Nami!" the swordsman snapped and instantly dropped her equipment carelessly into the sand when they reached the ship. "At first, you threatened me with an increase of my debts 'cause I didn't want to come with you and now you want me to stump up for _coming along_!? Seriously, how tainted can one single wench be?"

"What did you say, Zoro? You really want me to raise your interest that much?" said the navigator with a saccharine smile. "All right then, your wish shall be granted … "

Zoro's jaw dropped down in puzzlement, but he confined himself in merely hissing a quiet "Bitch" under his breath.

"How dare you taint the name of my angelic nightingale with such a shameless insult, you shitty muscle-brain!" roared Sanji therupon furiously from the ship. "One more word and I'll simmer you in red wine for dinner!"

_Dying in an alcohol bath? Not the worst way to kick the bucket, if you ask me_, thought one of Zoro's hemispheres, however the other one merely condescended in giving the cook a bored stare while his little finger obviously thought it was more exciting to pick in one of his ears. "Wow, demoness," he nonchalantly said to Nami. "Your little doggy is such a _noisy_ brute. Can he even do anything else than constantly bark at innocent swordsmen? Like retrieve? Or give paw?"

"EAT SHIT, YOU SHITTY SHIT OF A--"

"_Silence_, you idiots!" Nami's dominant voice thunderously put an abrupt end to the pointless argument. "Jeez, you give me such a migraine. Can't you two just _once_ act like the grown-up, decent men that you are and not like savage _baboons_ that--"

"Don't give _me_ that crap!" Zoro interrupted gruffly and utterly angry. "Tell that to Princess Goldilocks up there!"

"I really don't need to hear that from the guy who can't even find the _toilet_ in the morning!"

Just when the swordsman opened his mouth to launch out a loud retort that would have bristled with the most obscene insults, a fragile hand landed that roughly on his mouth that a painful smack emerged – even Sanji flinched in sympathy up on deck. "Don't you _dare_ to reply anything at this, Roronoa Zoro!" Nami roared so dangerously that probably even Davy Jones in person would have paled while facing her. "Or else I'm gonna raise your interest so much that even the children of the grandchildren of your grandchildren will pay my descendants for your stupidity!"

Zoro pulled her hand from his mouth in annoyance, hissing an almost sheepish, "Why only me, anyway? Why don't you ever give the stupid cook a mountain of debt to pay off?"

Nami blinked at the swordsman in puzzlement, her look visibly displaying that she was wondering if he had lived on the moon's surface for the past years. Then she gave an exasperated groan and started to fan air to herself in a _very_ seductive way. "Saaanji-kun," she breathed with a much too sweet voice. "It's so almighty hot out here. Would you be so kind and make me one of your heavenly tangerine cocktails?"

The cook's eyes instantly shaped up as hearts. "Give me just a second, oh you most tender buttercup on the endless meadow of my undying feelings!"

When the ship's cook lovedrunkenly pranced away, Nami gave the swordsman a triumphantly smile. "_That's_ why," she said.

So that moron had been working his debts off all along without noticing anything? Zoro blinked in puzzlement at first, but then something occured to him. "Wait a sec," he growled. "I just carried your whole – and _damn_ heavy – equipment around the whole freakin' island and I still have to pay!"

Nami giggled quietly as she grabbed for the rope ladder and begun to climb up to the deck. "That was merely a friendly turn," the navigator said calmly. "Besides, you're plenty dense enough to manage to pile up even more debts all the time." Zoro hissed some mean sounding insult below her to himself, wheron she topped her own evilness when she was on the ship, "Oh, and don't forget to clean my equipment after you've dropped it so carelessly, or else I'll double the money!" She blew the swordsman, who looked like he was about to explode with fury, a cheeky kiss and offered him one last perky grin before she turned away.

" … damn that dirty demoness … true virago … even the _devil_ is nicer … "

While Zoro was still ranting a little below, Nami almost bumped into Usopp, who was carrying a box that was obscuring his entire view, on her way to the galley. The navigator was barely able to duck away before the box and her head would have directly collided and instantly felt one of her less destructive waves of fury wash up in her stomach, since Usopp apparently didn't even notice it. "Usopp!" she yelled sharply and pulled the marksman back by the collar of his shirt as he intended to trot further. "Are you aware that you almost slayed me with your stupid box!?"

Usopp peeked up from beneath the edge of the box, an apologetic grin on his face. "Oops," he laughed. "Sorry, Nami. Didn't see you there."

"Well, obviously," sighed Nami, waving it off exasperatedly. "Whatever then, is Luffy already back? I need to talk to him about something concering our course."

"Nope," answered the marksman shortly, shrugging his shoulders.

The navigator furrowed her brows. "_Nope_?" she echoed in wonder. "I thought Zoro and I were way too late. Look over there, the sun is already going down." With a nod of her head, she pointed to the horizon where the sun had already halfways disappeared in the ocean, covering the sky in a soft orange-red. Usopp shrugged his shoulders rather impassively once again, wheron Nami arched an eyebrow. "Don't just cluelessly shrug your shoulders, rather worry a little! Do you even have the faintest idea how dangerous a jungle like that can be when it's dark!?"

Usopp turned pale at the mere thought. "Of course I know that," he said, nodding hastily. "That's why I stayed with Merry."

"And that moronic captain of ours even has _Vivi_ with him at that! What if he loses her?" Nami yelled in a trace of panic without dwelling on him. She simply overheard Usopp murmur something like "Oi, oi, she's not an object" and continued obliviously, "We have a huge responsibility toward her! If something happens to Vivi, I'll never get my billion … uh, Alabasta will go down!"

"You're only thinking about the cash!" Usopp snapped dumbfounded.

"Oi, you think those two lost their way?" asked a nonchalant voice behind them.

Usopp and Nami turned pale as ashes in an instant as they turned to stare at Sanji as if he just proclaimed the destruction of earth. Nami gave a befuddled laugh. "Don't be silly," she said, but the doubtful tone within her voice couldn't be overheard. "Vivi'd never lose her way. She's not Zoro after all."

"That's right," Usopp nodded in agreement, laughing just as nervous. "They'll be back any minute now."

Sanji's expression displayed concern as he puffed on his cigarette. "I hope you're right," he said, glancing at the jungle. "But I'm still worried."

Nami nodded, also looking over at the high crowns of the giant rainforest trees. "Me too."

Usopp sighed and tried to scare away the image of Luffy and Vivi getting eaten by some monster. "Yeah."

"My poor Vivi-chan … "

"Vivi … " _And my billion_ …

Usopp couldn't believe them. "Don't you two care about _Luffy_ at all!?"

-- --

Luffy was staring wordlessly at Vivi's back for about half an hour now, that much he was sure of. Well, staring was maybe put a little too soft-gloved, judging by the sullen scowl on his face. It wasn't that he was mad at her, but rather that obviously _she_ was mad at _him_. He knew this little ignoring-game from Nami, it wasn't rare that the navigator just simply stopped talking to him for the rest of the day when he was robbing her of her last nerve once again, but he didn't mind that as much as he did now with Vivi. The fact that _she_ just stopped talking to him made him, in this very moment, mad himself for some reason.

He didn't know himself why exactly it did. Maybe because he was very well aware that the whole ignoring thing was just some kind of punishment of her and that she was definitely already growing all fidgety because of the silence herself right now. Luffy had already realized shortly after their first meeting – in Little Garden probably – that Vivi and himself were exactly the same kind of person: The kind of person who needed action and adventure without cease, loved to laugh and felt uneasy when everything was quiet. He could practically see before his inner eye how her face tensed up more and more and how she desperately tried to pull herself together to not go and break the silence.

But since both were exactly the same kind of person, that meant that both also were equally stubborn, thus putting them into a verbal deadend. None of them would make the first move. Which was another thing that was upsetting Luffy so much. So much that he already opened his mouth to say something, but just one split second after that, he realized that he just made an attempt to cave in and quickly closed his mouth again.

He turned his head away and gave a defiant snort.

_Stupid Vivi_.

What was that girl thinking to keep him in suspense like that? He didn't even do anything wrong. _She_ was the one with the bad mood here after all! _She_ was the one who just had to go and misunderstand everything! _She _was the one being so … so … so_ dumb_!

His expression became a tad more defiant, his eyes a little more narrow and his lips pursed to a pigheaded pout. What was all this about, anyway? Why was she being so mean? It wasn't _his_ fault that she didn't get to have a mouthful of his Pirate Lunch Box earlier (Granted, it wasn't like he _asked_ or anything). And it was most definitely not his fault that it was so hot either. He was being too hot himself after all! Plus, he was hungry. Awfully hungry. It felt like his stomach was crumbling to ashes and a tiny chubby charwoman was sweeping all of it to a pathetic bunch inside of him.

Like on cue, his belly emerged an almost painful growl. Downright tormented by it, he brought up a hand to touch his tummy, wherby his sullen expression almost faltered a bit. But quickly, it grew only more angry because of it. He shot the blue-haired princess in front of him a fulgurous glare into the back and decided to make it her fault.

_She_ wasn't talking to him after all!

_Stupid Vivi._

Since the whole thing was driving him almost insane for some reason, he bent down to the ground with a knee-jerk reaction while walking, snatched up a small pebble and threw it at the head of the root of his current misery.

The princess in front of him flinched slightly. Luffy gave a malicious grin when he heard her drawing breath, ready to bombard him with insults or to give him a piece of her mind or both. But then she merely balled her hands to fists and just kept on walking wordlessly without paying any attention to him and the pebble that just hit her head.

His jaw dropped down, supremely offended.

_That_ … _that stupid Vivi!_

He snorted almost inaudibly, bent down onced more and picked up another pebble, a bigger one this time. He held the stone in front of his face with his arm stretched out, squeezed one eye shut to target and eventually flipped it _gently_ at her head – however, it was only gently for one of his enemies, since they were used to much heavier measurements.

Luffy was shocked when Vivi not even flinched anymore. Which was only maddening him even more, since he could practically _see_ her bite her lower lip in surpressed anger. She couldn't possibly play that game forever. Eventually, her tether just _had_ to come to an end!

He opened his mouth to throw _that_ at her, but fortunately, he was able to keep himself from really doing it just in time. He would most definitely _not_ give in! _He_ wasn't going to make the first move. After all, it was _him_ who was being the victim here while _she _was being the dumbass! Or whatever a mean girl was called! In any case, she was dumb. So dumb that he was growing more and more angry by the second, his pout more and more defiant and his glare more and more visible. He cursed something unintelligible through his teeth, bent down without taking his stare off of her and picked up a whole hand full of pebbles to throw them carelessly at her.

_Now, let's see how you like THAT!_

Though not all of them hit her head, the desired impact still didn't fail to appear: Vivi came to a halt with her shoulders trembling, her hands balled to fists so hard that the white of her knuckles was visible and whirled around to him furiously. "Are you _insane_!?" she finally yelled.

At first, Luffy was startled a little by her sudden reaction – and also a little about the way his heart skipped a beat in relief when he finally heard her voice again – but then he calmly dug his hands into his pants and turned his head away, whistling innocently through his teeth. "I didn't throw pebbles at you at all," he instantly lied realtively (_relatively_?) bad, even though she didn't ask.

Very angry, stemmed her hands in her sides and was standing in front him with a few threatening steps. "Don't lie to me! Which by the way you're not even very good at anyways!" She narrowed her eyes, glaring up at him. "You _did_ throw pebbles at me, you lunatic! And that hurt!"

Upon hearing that, he turned his head to her again, angryly glaring back. "It's your own fault, you moron!" he yelled at her. "_You_ were ignoring _me_ after all!"

"And for a good reason!" Vivi yelled back, her cheeks already flushed with rage. Luffy stared at her in expectation, wheron the princess replied almost snottily, "I don't talk to perverts."

"I'm not a pervert, damn it!" snapped the captain, indignantly. "I told you I don't wanna see you and your boobs naked at all! Jeez!" Outraged, Vivi turned her head aside, the blush on her cheeks however was highly visible. At that, Luffy suddenly saw daylight and the scales fell from his eyes. "Wait a sec … " He almost had to surpress a laugh. "Don't tell me you're mad because I _didn't_ want to see you naked!"

Completely disgusted now, Vivi stared wordlessly at the pirate with wide eyes and a shocked open mouth for a while. But then reality snatched her back from her realm of horror and blood rushed in her cheeks until she looked like an overripe tomato. "You … you're crazy!" she stammered, enraged. "I don't even want you to want to see me naked!"

"Oh yeah? And I don't want _you_ to want me to want to see you naked!" Luffy shot back, crossing his arms over his chest triumphantly.

Vivi frowned in confusion. "Whatever, you idiot!" she hissed and turned on her heels. "Now move, it's already gotten dark!"

Mumbling something unintelligible to himself, the captain followed her and for a while the anger in Vivi's world of thoughts just kept on dominating, but suddenly she paused appalled, jerked to a halt, which served to make Luffy bump straight into her for the second time that day, and horrifiedly brought a hand up to her mouth when she realized what she had just voiced unconsciously.

It had already gotten dark!

Vivi's eyes widened in alarm and... fear. Dark. Darkness. Darkness in a jungle. Pitch-darky darkness. Hold on, pitch-darky wasn't a word. But it was too gloomy, too dark, too _scary_ to think straight. At night in a jungle, all kinds of bloodthristy monsters could be wandering about, which itself wasn't really a thing to be too worried about (Luffy was as strong as a bear and Vivi wasn't a weakling either), but _at night_, those beast could theoretically come right out of nowhere, without them even seeing it coming! This was the beast's territory and at night humans were easy prey!

Besides, she had intended to be longest back to the ship by this kind of hour. And now … now it was almost looking as if she … together with Luffy-san … had to look for a place to spend the night!?

_No! No, no, no!_

"What's the matter, Vivi?" asked Luffy from behind her in a mist.

Vivi swallowed her ridiculous fear down. "N-nothing," she answered and gave a nervous giggle. "Nothing at all, Luffy-san."

Luffy arched an eyebrow. "And that's why you're trembling all over?"

The eyes of the princess widened appalled, hugging herself and glancing aside. "I-I'm not trembling!" she shrieked in embarrassement. "You're just imagining things!"

Luffy smirked slightly and glanced up at stars on the pitch-black sky. "The jungle's dangerous at night, isn't it?" he said with a smile. _That's why she's so afraid_, he thought to himself and continued, "Then we'd better find a shelter until tomorrow morning. To keep trying to get back at night doesn't make much sense anyway."

Vivi blinked at him in surprise. Did Luffy just have a very rare mature moment? For some reason, she felt the heat rush in her cheeks at the sight of his more grown-up side. "Y-yeah," she stuttered in agreement, smiling faintly. "That would be--"

But before she could finsih, she was interrupted by an earpiercing growl. It sounded like a monster lion or a bear from hell or Kerberos in person, and it roused a relatively small swarm of tropical birds to flutter out into the night somewhere not too far away from them. Almost one second after that, a loud shriek resounded and shortly after that the disgusting sound of smacking, indicating that something just got eaten by the monstrum.

Before Vivi knew what she was doing, she jumped with a knee-jerk "Kyaaa!" straight into Luffy's arms, buried her totally freaked out expression into the shirt he had put back on in the meantime and clutched at his waist for dear life, not giving a damn about what he was thinking and most definitely not giving herself the time to start thinking herself.

Luffy was almost taken off his feet by her effusive embrace and, most importantly, completely taken _aback_. He blinked down at her sky-blue head of hair and her squeezed eyes and lips in puzzlement, surprised to find himself blush at the vision of her being so afraid. Right now, she looked so … so …

_C-cute_, Luffy thought in amazement.

He cleared his throat into his hand in embarrassement, trying to get back into control over his blood pressure. He always forgot that there were actually girls on the planet who were indeed _acting_ like girls. When there was only Nami around you night and day, you tend to forget that little fact, being used to that woman's gruff behavior and all. But Vivi … Vivi was thoroughly a real, a true, a _very_ feminine girl. Somehow, that was … that was …

"V-Vivi?" he stuttered almost a little awkwardly and when she made a sheepish, very intimidated (but either way absolutely adorable _girlish_) "Hm?", he was almost tempted to simply cuddle her to the point where she couldn't breathe anymore – there wasn't such a cute girl in his arms that often after all. "You're … hugging me," he pointed out matter-of-factly, but only took in his own words and their _meaning_ a blink of an eye after. He almost regretted saying it, seeing that she definitely would be letting go of him now and to his absolute bewilderment … he didn't like that idea even one bit.

Vivi, who finally became aware of herself clutching at the captain as if he was the only lifesaver in a forlorn storm, jerkily startled with widened eyes. When she realized that everything around her was longest quiet as church mice again (leaving out the already familiar jungle-noises) yet she was _still_ hugging him, she flushed madly and knee-jerkly pushed him with both hands and all her strength so roughly away from her that he started tumbling a little and definitely would have fallen – being so surprised and all – if it wouldn't have been for the close tree behind him. Leaning against the tree with wide eyes, he stared at the blushing Vivi in wonder, while she was grasping her own hands, looking like she just touch a very poisonous plant.

"Oi!" growled Luffy after he got over the sudden shock. "What was that all about?"

"I-I'm sorry," murmured Vivi with crimson red cheeks, still shocked over her own behavior. "I-I'm sorry for hugging you just like that, Luffy-san. I … I don't know why I … "

Luffy's face relaxed to a bashful frown. "It's okay," he said considerably clamer than intended. He glanced aside, a barely visible blush covering his cheeks. "It's not that I minded or anything … "

Vivi's head rocketed upwards in puzzlement, blinking befuddled at him. "E – eh!?"

When he realized what he just said, the captain quickly added, "I mean, since you almost wet your pants of fear and all!"

Vivi's jaw dropped down, indignantly. "That's not true! I was just a little startled, that's all!"

"A little startled? Oh no, Vivi, that wasn't just a _little_," Luffy laughed almost gleefully, waving it off. "You were really trembling and all. Look over here, _this_ is what you looked like." He took position, widened his eyes so much that the princes almost expected his eyeballs to plop right out of their holes and managed somehow to make his body tremble all over like an eletric eel. Then he squeezed his eyes shut and jumped against the next best tree with a dart, snaking his arms around it for five times and actually squeazing a few false tears out. "KYAAA! I'm such a scaredy cat!" he squeaked with a faked female voice, which sounded absolutely ridiculous.

Vivi flashed with anger and embarrassement, so much that everyone else would have half-expected to see emission of lava come out from her nose any minute. "I am _not_ a scaredy cat!" she yelled and almost sounded like a defiant little girl. "And just for the record, I never said any of that! Don't just go and make stuff up yourself!"

Luffy let go off the tree, giving her a teasing grin. "But you did say the _kyaaa-_part," he snickered in amusement.

The princess flinched, feeling caught, and turned her head away, deeply embarrassed and abashed. "J-just shut up!" she stammered furiously. "Let's concentrate on finding an appropriate place to sleep! We won't find our way back to the ship today anyways!"

"Yay! Camping!" Luffy exclaimed with a sudden sparkle in his eyes that was almost blinding. "We're camping! It's camping, isn't it? Ne, Vivi? It's like camping, right?"

Vivi sighed, but just couldn't surpress a small smile, no matter how hard she tried to keep acting like a prima donna. "Yup, Luffy-san. It's exactly like camping."

"YAY!" The captain beamed, his eyes shining like Crocus' lighthouse at night, before he began a breathtakingly false singsong, "We're caaamping! Caaamping! We're caaamping! I love caaamping!"

Vivi, quietly giggling, shook her head when Luffy pranced and hopped past her and kept on singing something about a campfire into the night. Unbelievable. Somehow, she didn't quite know how though, that guy managed that you just couldn't stay mad at him for very long, no matter how hard you tried. Even though he really had the ability to drive you nuts sometimes and he even seemed to enjoy it. But maybe … maybe _that_ was exactly what made him so damn lovable.

"Oi, Vivi! Look over here!" he suddenly yelled and Vivi blinked about the unexpected distance he had brought between them while she had been so lost in her thoughts. She saw him pointing to the right. "There's a small clearing. Is that okay for camping?"

Vivi's face lightened up a bit. "That will do!"

-- --

"That's it! We're going to look for them!"

The male rest of the crew paused in puzzlement while eating as Nami so suddenly banged her hands onto the table and stood up. She had an angry and dominant albeit somewhat sorrowful expression on her face and punished every single one of her boys and reindeers with a look that instantly cut off any sort of opposition. Usopp and Sanji exchanged understanding glances while Zoro only gave a short grunt (but still didn't dare to just impassively continue his meal) and Chopper just glanced in confusion from Nami to the others.

Sanji was the only one who was wear of life enough to rais an objection, "Nami-san, I understand what you feel, but it's _night_--"

"I don't give a damn!" snapped the navigator furiously, banging her hands onto the table once more, so that Chopper actually flinched. "We're in the middle of dinner! And it's _quiet_! And I still have my whole steak on the plate! Do you see what's wrong here?"

"Luffy has _never_ missed one of Sanji's meals before," answered Usopp and knitted his brows in concern.

Nami nodded vigorously. "Exactly!" she said forcefully. "Don't you guys worry at all? Huh!?" Sie turned to the swordsman who was currently sipping placidly at his bottle of Sake, snapping a dangerous, "ZORO?"

He promptly choked on the alcohol and coughed a hoarse, "A-actually, Luffy's pretty much capable of taking care of himself and--"

"Shut up, you bozo, nobody asked you!" she roared abrassively and then turned her head to the ship's cook with the sudden pleading, but truly absolute attractive expression of a damsel in distress on her face. "Sanji-kun? Sanji-kun, I'm right, aren't I? Aren't you also awfully worried? _Ne_, Sanji-kun!"

"I'm absolutely worried sick over them, my godess of sensuality!" Sanji instantly swooned, puffing small hearts of smoke into the air. "I'll surely won't be able to close even one eye until my honorable captain is safely snoring in his hammock and my sweet Vivi-chwan is resting peacefully in her welfare bed!"

"But to go looking for them now is absolute lunacy, Nami," said Usopp, glancing out the porthole. "Starting a big search operation in a jungle at night is like looking for the famous needle in a haystack. It's already hard at _day_, but at night it's a totally vainly rescue mission with the worst case being us probably kicking the bucket ourselves."

Nami bit her lower lip in despair. "B-but … we can't just let them down!" she objected dterminedly, even though deep down inside she was very well aware how right the marksman was. "What if they were attacked? Maybe they're injured! They may need our help! And even if they're not hurt somehow, where are they supposed to sleep!?" Suddenly she paused as an idea hit her like a lightning. With flashing eyes, she turned back to Sanji and said almost affectionately, "Oh, but thank God that Vivi has our Luffy with her to keep her warm _with his body_. If she feels cold, she'll just cuddle herself into _the strong arms_ of our _cute_ captain who understands her so well, and who knows what kind of _hot things_ are bound to happen then … Isn't that right, Sanji-_kun_?"

Sanji paused stiff while putting away random implements back into the cupboards, apparantely quick-froze for a few seconds. After a few more breaths, he started trembling, quaking, the surpressed anger was already almost visible. And another few heartbeats later, he exploded completely like a powder keg, even more-so, rather like a full-grown atomic bomb, very much to Nami's satisfaction.

"LIKE I'D LET THAT HAPPEN!"

Usopp's mouth twitched beffudled. "Oh no, she pulled the Sanji-joker."

Chopper glanced up at Zoro in puzzlement. "Isn't that cheating?"

Zoro snorted. "You're not surprised, are you? She's the devil." He kept on impassively sipping at his his bottle. "She's always acting like she actually was the captain or at least the vice captain … "

"I JUST HOPE THAT MORON DOESN'T DARE TO _TOUCH_ HER!"

While Sanji furioisly put his jacket on, Nami shrigged her shoulders with a saccharine smile on her face. "Well, Zoro, if we actually _had_ a vice captain, I wouldn't have to take these drastic measures."

"Who said we didn't have a vice captain?"

"I'M GONNA _FLAMBÉ_ HIM IF I SHOULD CATCH THOSE TWO NAKED!"

Everyone, except Sanji who was currently way too busy with ranting about their captain, stared at Zoro with eyes as big as plates, since he had thrown that statement way too unexpectedly into the conversation.

Nami blinked in bewilderment. "Zoro? What do you mean?"

"We have a vice captain?" Chopper asked in confusion, blinking also.

"Why, of course we do!" Usopp exclaimed with a proud grin, scenting his chance. He struck a victory-pose – fortunately for him, Sanji was currently too busy ranting abut someone else, or else he surely would have chopped the marksman's leg off with a steakknife for placing it on _his_ table – and pointed to the heavens. "The vice captain is no other than--"

"_Me_," said Zoro with imapssive sincerity.

Usopp froze in his movements, Nami's eyes widened in shock, Chopper blinked naively from one to the other and even Sanji stopped yelling about. "Oh, you don't say!" Nami snapped disbelieving, being the first one to snap out of her numbness. "And how, if I may ask, did you _come_ to that glorious conclusion?"

"Easy," growled the swordsman, solemnly crossing his arms in front of his chest. "I was Luffy's first comrade, ergo his First Mate. A First Mate is automatically on a par with a Vice Captain." He almost smirked gleefully when he saw Nami's speechless, gaping mouth. "In plain language, that means that as long as Luffy's not here," a downright evil grin spread on his face, "you guys do what _I_ tell you."

Nami's jaw dropped dumfounded to the ground and the faces of the rest weren't looking that much different. The only one whose expression wasn't dominated by shock, but rather by _disgust_ and _anger_ was none other than Sanji. His last straw already had been Nami indicating insinuating things about Luffy's and Vivi's interpretation of a night alone in a dark jungle anyway. "WHAT!" he roared furiously, fuming like a raging bull on his cigarette. "If you're seriously thinking that I'll do your bidding, then your brain full of shit is fairly wrong, you shitty cactus head!"

"I'm also against it!" Usopp agreed with swelled cheeks. "If someone here has the right to call himself vice captain, then it's _me_!"

"_Oh really_?" growled Zoro and shot Usopp such a dangerous death glare that the younger one emerged a high squeak of fear, jumping to hide behind the navigator, who apparently still couldn't believe what Zoro just proclaimed.

"Then again," Usopp laughed nervously, waving it off, "You're probably more fit for the role. Go, Vice Captain Zoro!" He gave him a not all that honest thumbs-up.

"Nami-san!" said Sanji insistently to the red-head. "Say something! You're not possibly going to agree to this, are you?"

Nami was still staring wordlessly to the ground. "Well," she eventually said surprisingly calm and composed. "So it's settled then. Zoro's the Vice Captain." But when she finally looked up, invariably everyone instantly froze at the vision of the most diabolic grin they had ever seen in their entire life. "You're in command from now on, Zoro."

Usopp instantly backed away from her, stricken with fear. "Oh my God, she's pondering about ways for him to die! I can see the sadistic little wheels of evilness in her brain rotating and clattering!"

"She's gonna make his life hell!" Chopper exclaimed in panic. "_Hell_!"

Sanji lightened himself a cigarette, his eyes wide. "Rest in peace, man," he told Zoro earnestly. "I really respect your courage. I won't miss you, though."

"Pipe down, you guys," Zoro grumbled considerably clamer than he felt while facing _that_ face of Nami. "She's probably just going to double … tripple … quadruplicate … my debts. Until … I can't pay anymore … " He felt sick only thinking it, but honestly? This thing was worth it. Only to boss the demoness and the ero-cook around was worth even selling his soul, not to mention his own grandmother.

"Aw, you know me so well," chirped Nami, suddenly in a really good mood. Probably because Zoro's debts were that enormous by now that he could theoretically already start with letting the words 'Nami's Slave' being tattoed to his forehead.

Chopper stared at Zoro in confusion. "So does that mean that we have to listen to whatever you say? Just like in 'Simon Says'?"

Well, that easn't exactly what he would call it, but … "Yeah, whatever. Just that our game is called 'Zoro Says'." Somehow, he already started to like the whole thing immensely. So immensely that he almost gave a malicious laugh.

The reindeer grinned. "Sounds fun! Okay, I'll play!"

Perfect, three were down, leaving only one idiot. Zoro glanced at the cook and withstood his glare clamly. "Makes it four against one, ero-cook. Go along with the majority or jump off board."

Sanji, who was very well aware of the fact that his own opinion had been already voted down, hissed an annoyed "Tch" through his teeth and turned his head away. "As if I'd leave my Nami-san alone with the mannerless primates that you guys are." He inhaled the nicotine deeply to calm himself.

"It's decided then," grinned the swordsman triumphantly, resting his arms on the table. "All right, so here's the plan." He looked at them, suddenly serious again. "We'll unhurriedly finish our meal, get our blood pressure back under control and for now just shut our concern down until tomorrow morning. Luffy's a tough guy, not even a dangerous jungle will get him down so fast and Vivi is rational enough to keep his cheeky nose out of every chaos for the time being. They're able of keeping an eye on each other until we come for them."

Nami thoughtfully coked her head and everyone else also had to admit that the whole thing sounded largely plausible.

"That's why," Zoro continued, "we're gonna get ourselves the well-owned sleep we really need right now and meet up here tomorrow morning at six o'clock sharp. Until then, you had better prepared a few lunch boxes, cook." He shot the ship's cook a side glance, which only cursed an insult under his breath, but apprently payed deference to him. Zoro really had to surpress a grin as large as Luffy's at this gratification. "Nami, you already finished the map of this island, right?" The navigator blinked and eventually nodded. "You think you could make a copy of that until tomorrow?"

Nami was downright outraged. "Well, Mister Vice Captain! What do _you_ think!"

Zoro grinned. "Perfect. Usopp, you prepare some smoke grenades and flares for the pistols, so that we're able to find each other." The marksman nodded with a grin. "Chopper, you arrange your whole equipment, just in case." The reindeer, who thought the whole thing was wafully exciting, offered him a nod. "We'll start bright and early tomorrow morning then und bring those two back safely. Any objections?"

"Not at all, Vice Captain Zoro!" grinned Usopp. He admit to admit that Zoro's little speech right now had been sort of cool.

Nami was almost, but merely _almost_ somewhat impressed. "Not bad, Zoro," she praised with a smile. "You really thought about everything."

"That was so cool!" Chopper beamed, his eyes sparkling. "Like a war discussion! Or at a robbery! Zoro, you're so damn cool!"

"I have an objection," Sanji snorted suddenly, stubbing out his cigarette in the nearest ashtray.

Zoro rolled his eyes. "Well, if that isn't a surprise," he snarled wryly. "Why does our little sissy always have to bitch on about everything?"

"Well, actually it's rather an admittedly very legitimate question for our new vice captain before he officially takes office," grinned the cook, suddenly looking superior. "Now just tell me how _you_ think you're going to manage to get up at six! Because I sure as hell promise you right here and now that we freakin' _will_ go without you if you oversleep again, no matter if you're the Vice Captain or not!"

The swordsman narrowed his eyes for a second, but then closed them, his features relaxing. "I'm not gonna oversleep. _Definitely_ not."

"Ha!" Sanji laughed. "Tell us another! You'd even oversleep your own _wedding_, let alone-"

"I'm not gonna oversleep," Zoro repeated that sharply and serious that the cook actually feel silent. "Not when it's about _the Captain_."

All of a sudden, the silence in the galley was so overwhelming that it would throttled everyone not involved with the crew. The tension was so tangible, so _there_ that you could almost touch it, even _cut_ it. All pair of eyes in the room were set on Zoro and every single one them was in that moment more aware than ever before that the icebloc of a swordsman who always acted as if he was inapproachable was in truth the one worrying the most of them.

When Zoro noticed everyone, even _Sanji_, giving him sympathetic looks, he awkwardly cleared his throat, _actually blushed_ and bashfully glanced aside. "By the way, wasn't there something about one billion Berri if we manage to bring Vivi back to Alabasta safely or did I get that wrong?" All three of the male crew members blinked in complete confusion, only Nami suddenly grinned as wide as she could, her eyes beginning to shine like the sun in person. "You're gonna abate my debts if I get you that billion, that's what we agreed on. Right, Nami?"

Nami nodded vigorously as she clasped her hands together with delight, almost brimming over with enthusiasm. "Why yes, yes of course! Cross my heart and hope to die!"

"Vivi-chwaaan! Do not fret, because your graceful knight in shining armor is on his way to save you from the big, bad monster-monkey!"

"I wanna play 'Zoro Says' again!"

Usopp slapped his forehead. "I'm surrounded by heartless egoists."

-- --

"You gotta be kidding me."

Grimacing, Luffy stared at the uneven line extending between him and the princess on the sabulous ground. He glanced up at Vivi with disbelief, while she nonchalantly threw the small stick which she had used to draw the line with over her shoulder into the next best bush and then unapologetically crossed her arms in front of her chest.

"What's with that line, Vivi?" he complained loudly, pointing at the provisional border.

"A mere precaution," answered the princess with a shrug. "A girl has got to play it safe when she's stuck with a pubescent, testosterone-driven guy over night in a dark jungle. I don't know what a pirate captain like you is up to after all. I heard pirates take everything that isn't nailed down and has a pair of breasts … "

Luffy glared angrily at her. "But I've got _taste_!"

Vivi narrowed her eyes and stemmed her hands in her sides. "Now what's _that_ supposed to mean?"

"Nothing," piped Luffy with faked innocence and looked away.

Before the princess could get needlessly upset over him again, she rather swallowed down her anger and pointed to the line. "Anyway," she proclaimed forcefully, "You don't wanna dare to step over this line!"

He arched a brow, almost curiously. "Oh yeah? And why not? What happens if I do?"

At first, Vivi was speechless and merely stared back at him with a gaping mouth, but then Luffy's inherent naivety occured to her, which was a trace of him that you didn't even have to know him as long as the others for to notice it. So she grinned triumphantly at him. "If you step over this line," she said as darkly as an old frail seer, "you'll never become Pirate King and One Piece will move beyond your reach!"

Luffy's jaw instantly dropped down, but for once rationality prevailed over reflex in this case. "You're LYING!" he exclaimed, pointing at the princess as if he was accusing her of a horrible crime. "That won't happen! It won't happen just because you say it will! It _won't_ happen!"

Vivi's eyes flashed up mischievously. "Do you really wanna find out, Luffy-san?" His mouth snapped shut at a loss, he could only glare at her defiantly yet wordless. Vivi grinned in superiority. "Thought so." And with that she turned on her heels to walk back to her backpack which she had carelessly to the ground earlier.

Just that … there was no trace of it anywhere.

The princess blinked in confusion. "Hm? Where's my backpack?" The first thought that popped up in her head was that she maybe had thrown it into the brushwood, but just when she atempted to look for it, she froze and her expression darkened at _that_ insight.

Okay.

_Okay!_

Enough was simply enough.

"I … I can't believe it … " Vivi pressed through her gritted teeth with supressed anger and trembling fists, before she furiously whirled around to the pirate captain standing behind her and scanning the environment for something edible. "MONKEY!" she roared and made a threatening step in his direction. "D!" Another step. "LUFFY!"

Luffy flinched in alarm and turned around to her very slowly, his eyes wide in shock. Before cold sweat to a certain extent of the Niagara Falls could overcome him, he fortunately realized _who_ was standing there before him and therefore clasped a hand over his heart, sighing in relief. "Phew," he laughed nervously. "For a second I thought you actually switched souls with Nami." After all, that woman was the only one who ever used his full name and that only when he was getting into mischief again. Somehow, all females only ever used the full name when said someone was getting into mischief...

Wait a second.

Blinking in realization, he looked up and found himself staring directly into the rage-sizzling eyes of the princess and suddenly, he did feel cold sweat forming on his forehead after all. "I-I didn't do anything! I swear!"

"Oh really?" Vivi hissed furiously, stemming her hands in her sides. "So where's my backpack then? Huh? HUH!?"

"How the heck would I know?" Luffy shrunk away one step when she ominously bent forward. "You prabably lost it somewhere!"

"I'm not you!" she shot back. "You're the only one I know who could actually manage to lose something as big as a backpack just like that!" She made another threatening step in his direction. "So spit it out already, Luffy-san! Where did you hide my backpack?"

Luffy narrowed his eyes. "Could you explain what I would need _your_ backpack for!? I have my own, you know!"

"I have no idea!" snapped Vivi. "Maybe it's supposed to be some kind of stupid revenge for that parting line I drew earlier!" But then she paused in a mist and determinedly shook her head. "No, that can't be. You'd never come up with something like that." While Luffy complained with a loud "Hey!", Vivi continued in irritation, "Oh, just give it back already!"

"But I don't have your stupid backpack, damn it!"

"If you don't have it, then who does then!? Did the _monkeys_ steal it or something, huh!?"

Like on cue, a heavy torch light landed directly on Luffy's head with a dull thud and instantly made them both shut their mouths with widened eyes.

For a split second, Vivi felt relief wash over her at the fact that it hasn't been _her_ who was hit by the tourch light but the rubber man who was immune to such things; a regular human would have been struck to death by it. But the next moment her jaw dropped open dumbfounded when she realized that this torch light had been in _her_ backpack!

A goofy, animal snicker fetched both back to reality and when they turned their heads up they couldn't believe their eyes that there was actually indeed a chimpanzee sitting on the closest tree, tossing Vivi's backpack back and forth with one hand and visibly having the time of his life. Flashing them a big grin, the monkey grabbed into the yellow backpack and snatched a small package out which he also threw at Luffy, but this time the pirat could duck down just in time.

"Oi! What the hell do you think you're doing!?" Luffy snapped angrily, making the chimpanzee laugh and joyfully clap his hands which only served to infuriate the captain even more. "Are you laughing about me!? Why you gutless monkey! Get your ass down here and fight me like a man!"

"A … a monkey stole my backpack," Vivi mumbled disbelievingly and still couldn't believe that her sarcastic remark actually took form up there. "That's gotta be some really lame joke … !"

**To be continued**** …**


	2. Piece of Broken Glass

**Theme: **#02 – news; letter**  
Disclaimer: **I don't own any of the fabulous, perfect, godlike characters that will make an appearance in this story as I am most definitely not Eiichiro Oda.

**Notes: **Yay, only 16 pages in Word this time. :D Did I improve or what? And thanks to all of you five reviewers. :3 I really appreciate it that you took the time to read all this and I really hope you will continue to follow this story until its end.

-- --

My Hungry Heart

**TWO: Piece of Broken Glass**

**-- --**

"Monkey, monkey, monkey … you're a good little monkey, right?"

"_Pfft._"

"Shut up, Luffy-san!" hissed Vivi casually at him and then fully consecrated herself back to the chimpanzee, who was still sitting in the tree with a large grin on his face, tossing her backpack about in big circles – it was astonishing that nothing fell out. Vivi forced a wobbly grin to her lips as she stretched out her arms for the animal. "Come on, monkey, monkey, monkey! Cute little monkey! Be a good little monkey!"

"Pfft," Luffy laughed once more, sitting cross-legged on his side of the clearing and picking his nose with his pinky. He grinned teasingly at the princess' back. "Doesn't work that way, eh?"

Vivi shot him a dangerous glare. "It'd maybe work better if you would _help_ me, instead of sitting there all placid, picking your nose and everything!"

The captain flipped a bugger off his finger, laughing in superiority, and then triumphantly crossed his arms in front of his chest. "I'd really love to do just that," he smiled darkly. "But unfortunately, there's _this_ line," he pointed at the uneven borderline, which the princess had drawn with a small stick in the sabulous ground earlier, "and if I cross it, I'll never become Pirate King."

Vivi's jaw dropped down in disbelief. This was simply unbelievable! Here was that brainless rubber captain, using her own methods _against_ her! She had to admit, sometimes Luffy was smarter than anybody would guess – or he was just indeed stupid enough to actually _believe_ that he would never become Pirate King if he crossed that line. In any case, the monkey, though he actually didn't understand a word, rejoiced. He hopped a perch upwards in ecstasy, and when he was there he jumped up and down, clapping his hands and bursting out laughing.

However, Vivi was on the brink of despair. "Monkey-chaaan," she said almost a little whiny-voiced in a final attempt to persuade the animal, "_Please_ give me back my backpack?"

"Hm," Luffy suddenly launched out, cocking his head thoughtfully. "I _could_ get your backpack back with a 'Gomu Gomu no Gimme That!' without having to cross the line…"

The princess instantly whirled around to him with an overhappy grin on her face, and gratefully clasped her hand together next to her face. "Luffy-san! You're the best! Please do that!"

"…but I don't feel like it."

Vivi watched dumbfounded and with a gaping mouth how the black-haired pirate flopped backwards on the sandy ground with a yawn, pulling his straw hat over his face. She indignantly blinked at him, or rather at his hat. "You…" she started completely taken by surprise. "You … don't _feel like it_!?"

A triumphantly grin flashed up from beneath his straw hat. "You know, I'm hungry, Vivi," he eventually yawned. "And when I'm hungry, I don't really feel like doing anything at all."

Now it was Vivi who couldn't surpress a triumphantly grin. "Oh, if it's just _that_," she chirped mellifluous and pointed up the tree where the monkey was sitting in, who slowly became rather bitchy since no one was paying any attention to him. "There are mangos growing on that tree, so just 'Gomu Gomu' yourself up there and go get a few. And while you're at it, get my backpack, too!"

"REALLY!?" exclaimed the captain, suddenly overjoyed, and instantly jumped to his feet, with a sparkling excitement in his eyes and a gigantic grin on his lips. But when reality snatched him back from his dream world and the line between them caught his eye, his face darkened to a crestfallen expression. "No. Impossible. I can't. The tree is on _your_ side."

Vivi blinked in a mist. "So?"

"Everything on your side is _yours_," said Luffy as if it was general knowledge. "And the code says--"

"There is no _code_," interrupted the bluette in a befuddled murmur.

"--that I mustn't touch anything on your ground, just like _you _mustn't claim anything on _my _side of the line as yours," he defined expertly and then pointed to the right. "I wouldn't want you to warm yourself up at my campfire, so I can't eat your mangos either. That's just the way the code is."

The princess arched an eyebrow in irritation. Ah yes, the _campfire_. The great, holy campfire. Vivi had been completely flabbergasted, to say the least, when suddenly the awful smell of smoke had started to crawl up her nose about half an hour ago. After she had only concerned herself with the chimpanzee and the retrieving of her backpack, Luffy had probably gotten bored and so he had started to have a good look-around. That was probably when he had noticed the small package the monkey had thrown at him earlier and it turned out to be the package of matches that Nami had put into the backpacks of each of them, except Luffy ("You'd probably just go and spark the biggest forest fire in the history of our world!"), just in case. After he had inconspicuously gathered firewood and had lightened a match, his so dearly longed for campfire was finally ablaze – which only led to him intoning his camping-song from earlier once more. (The only thing missing was him undressing to his birthday suit, putting on one of those ridiculous feather crowns and dancing some kind of homage-dance around it; Vivi wouldn't have put it past him.)

In any case, Vivi was sure that the campfire wasn't anywhere near as holy to him as it seemed, she didn't even have to voice that there wasn't a code to begin with and that was exactly why the true reason for this little game of his was so obvious:

A mean, scheming and damn pigheaded _tit-for-tat response_.

She guessed that Luffy's stubbornness and his hunger had battled with each other, but in the end and as expected, his bullhead had won by a mile. However, his bullhead sure as hell wouldn't win _here_. Because Vivi's pighead was simply the stronger one!

"You," she said, supremely angry, "just made that up."

"Did not!" Luffy shot back indignantly.

Vivi crossed her arms in front of her chest in superiority. "Oh really? So where did you get all that idiocy from then?"

"Just about _everyone_ knows that! There are plenty of _wars_ who were started just about that matter!" he explained completely convinced with an earnest expression. "The code is holy. Period."

The princess raised both her eyebrows, her look one of pure incredulity, but suddenly the scales fell from her eyes. "Did Usopp-san tell you that?"

Luffy's stare became observant. "And what if he did?"

Vivi sighed in exasperation, bringing a hand up to touch her forehead. "Okay, look," she said as calmly as possible. "Just _forget_ the line for now, would you? I want my backpack and you want those mangos." After an insight, she added, "I promise I won't tell a soul that you violated the code."

Luffy doubtfully arched an eyebrow. "And what about my thesaurus?"

Vivi blinked. "Your _what_?"

"You drew the line because of my tarantulas," he repeated matter-of-factly.

In the meantime, the princess' stare became more and more one of completely and utter incomprehension. "_What_?"

Luffy glared in irritation. Seriously, was she really that slow on the uptake? "My transmitter," he repeated once more with force. "You said you were afraid of them or something. You know, my testicles."

Vivi flushed crimson in sudden bursts, her eyes widening in horror. "_WHAT_!"

"My TRE-"

"TESTOSTERONE!" interrupted the bluette in a scream, her voice all high-pitched of shock – the word _testicles_ sounded both disgusting and wrong, particularly when coming from Luffy's mouth. "It's _testosterone_! Not thesaurus, not tarantulas, not transmitter and _least of all_ testicles! TES-TOS-TE-RONE!"

Luffy furrowned his brows at her. "Jeez, you're complicated," he said bluntly. "You could've said that right from the beginning, you know."

Vivi gaped at him wordlessly for a while, her expression an odd mixture of blank horror and some sort of obscure sympathy. But then she decided to not dwell on it any further, because let's face it, it wouldn't make much sense to go and try to explain it to him anyway. "Gods, just forget it!" she said instead, completely stressed out. "Forget your testosterone, forget the code and forget the damn _line_! Look!" All of a sudden, her foot shot forward, obliterating the part of the line where the captain was standing. "There you go! The line is destroyed! And now get up there!"

The raven-haired pirate shot her one last defiant glare (maybe he felt that his camper-pride had been hurt somehow) and then sluggishly sauntered past her with a ducked position, hands buried in his pockets, while he muttered something to himself that sounded equivocally something like this, "Jeez, are all women like that? Why draw a line when she's just gonna wipe it away in the end anyway?"

Vivi rolled her eyes and turned around to him, but when she found him just standing there motionless and peeking up at the tree, she frowned in puzzlement. "What's the matter, Luffy-san? Will you _please_ get my backpack now?"

"Um. I would."

"_But_?" she pressed out from gritted teeth.

"But the monkey's gone."

"Oh, so the monkey is--" Suddenly, she fully took in the meaning of those words and that was when her eyes widened in horror. "He's _gone_!?"

Luffy cluelessly shrugged his shoulders, offering her an apologetic smile. "Sorry, Vivi."

The princess sank down to her knees in disbelief, staring heartstricken to the ground. "Not there… my backpack is gone… GONE… not good…" she murmured to herself in despair.

Luffy blinked in perplexity. "Hey," he said almost gently, before kneeling down to her and placing a hand on her shoulder. When she looked up, he offered her an encouraging grin. "It's not really that big a deal, right? I mean, I still have my backpack. Or was there something really important in yours?"

Vivi looked like she was on the brink of tears. "My full Pirate Lunch Box."

"WHAT!" Luffy straightened up in a flash, his expression one of rare fury. "YOU BASTARD-MONKEY, I'LL KICK YOUR ASS, DAMN IT!"

-- --

"These mangos taste weird," whinged Luffy, wrinkling his nose.

Vivi giggled quietly into her hand as she roasted her own slice of mango, neatly pierced with a considerably clean stick, over the captain's _sacred_ campfire. (He had kindly allowed her to join him; probably because Vivi had threatened him with the fact that she _would_ keep those mangos to herself, since the code clearly said they were _hers_.) So both midget lands had agreed on a truce for the time being, so that their stomachs could get the dinner (or rather their _midnight snack_?) they indeed deserved after the whole mess today. The day had been so straining, so exhausting that Vivi was barely able to hold her stick in a straight position, but she fought her way through it anyway. However, she couldn't see how Luffy was still as bright as a button. On the other hand, that was just the kind of person he was – a hyperactive live wire.

"Since when were you so picky, Luffy-san?" she teased with a grin.

Luffy boredly took a bite of his slice of mango, chewing halfheartedly on it. "Since that bastard of a _monkey_," he said almost a little whiny-voiced around a mouthful, "probably started munching Sanji's unique curry-rice-balls with that darned soft meat-stuffing right now. And I have to put up with these… these… _fruits_ here. Just how am I supposed to recharge my batteries, completely without meat and all?"

Vivi offered him a compassionate smile. "I'm sorry," she said earnestly. "I should've kept a better eye on my backpack…"

Luffy blinked at her in puzllement, shaking his head then. "Nah, I should've just helped you right from the start," he said. "It's that stupid code's fault. I'm gonna have a word with Usopp tomorrow." He took another bite of his mango, indignantly furrowing his brows.

"I really shouldn't have drawn that line…" she murmured as she blew cold air to her own slice of mango.

"Yup, that's true," Luffy agreed bluntly, eliciting a quiet giggle from the princess, before he grabbed for a new slice of mango and put it over his stick. Yet a wide grin spread on his face as he held his mango into the fire. "At least, we get the true camping-feeling now. With a real campfire and the whole works."

Vivi grinned back. "So all this wasn't _completely_ without use then," she giggled.

That was a character trait that she really admired Luffy for. His merciless optimism. That guy managed to make something good even out of the most awkward situation, he transformed every misery into a tiny pebble that just haphazardly managed to sneak in his way and that he could easily kick away. Maybe he really did have more of a good leader in him than she had thought at first.

_Yeah, maybe_, she thought almost a little dreamily and took a pleasurably bite of her mango that didn't taste all that weird like he had made it out at all.

"OUCH!"

Vivi startled out of her world of thoughts in puzzlement and turned her head to Luffy, who clasped a hand over his mouth with narrowed eyes and his face wreathing in pain, cursing quietly to himself. She instantly asked in alarm, "What happened?"

"I burned myshelf on dad damn mango," he mumbled angryly into his fingers.

The princess sighed, a relieved smile on his face. She had alreay feared some sort of poisonous insect, the incident with Nami was still fresh in her mind. She giggled quietly. "Let me see, Luffy-san."

The captain held out his stick with the mango on it to her, a defiant expression on his face. "There. Look."

"Not the _mango_," laughed Vivi, pointing at the hand over his lips then. "I was talking about your _mouth_." Luffy blinked at her in silence for a while, until she rolled her eyes. "You gotta take your hand away for that, you know."

"I can'd," he mumbled and only pressed his hand firmer over his mouth. "It hurtsh do mush!"

Vivi rolled her eyes once more, but this time with a smile. "Don't be so touchy over a small burn-up, you dangerous pirate with a bounty of 30 million Berri," she teased wryly and grabbed for his hand, pulling it off his mouth rather easily after a few halfhearted little brawls. After the hand was out of the way, she cupped his head with both of her own hands to bring his face in a perfect position, so that she was able to examine his lips.

Nothing. Nada. Niente. Nichts. Rien.

Maybe it _was_ a _little_ reddened, but just if you looked _really_ closely, rolled your eyes outside at first, then squinted your eyes and lastly strained every grain of your fantasy that you owned.

Vivi almost had to surpress a fit of laughter. "Luffy-san, there's absolutely _nothing_."

"But it still hurts!" he insisted vividly and added whiny-voiced, "Do something, Vivi!"

"What am I supposed to do?" she sighed, still observing his lips. "We don't have ice, nor water, nor anything else that could cool you."

Luffy sulked wordlessly to himself for a while and when he eventually opened his mouth again, he actually said, "So just kiss it better then."

Vivi couldn't believe her ears. In a flash, she let go of him so fast, it almost gave the impression that _she_ was the one who had burned herself dangerously just now. She stared at him in complete agitation, her eyes wide. "Wh-what did you just say!?" she squeaked with a high-pitched voice after a few heartbeats of stunned silence.

Luffy frowned in bewilderment and brought his hand back up over his mouth. "What's with you? Makino always did that whenever I hit my knee or something," he mumbled in incomprehension. "It _helps_, you know."

"So what! You can't just go and ask a girl your age to 'kiss it better'!" snapped Vivi with flushed cheeks. "A kiss is something intimate and should only happen between people who truly love each other! It's something meaningful and something really important for a girl and… and…"

The captain arched a brow in confusion. "But we're _nakama_," he said forcefully. "So we love each other, right?"

Vivi flushed an even deeper shade of red. "That's certainly not the same kind of love that _I_ am talking about!" she snapped in befuddlement. "I'm talking about _true_ love, the _one and only_ love between a man and a woman, a love that's stronger than anything else in the world!"

"But definitely not stronger than _I_," Luffy grinned proudly.

The princess glared furiously at him, grabbed for a piece of mango and banged the, as recently occured to her, cooling slice of fruit onto his mouth, roaring into his ear, "You're an ignorant idiot!"

Luffy sighed into the cooling mango in relief. "Thanks."

"That was no compliment," she hissed, but then rolled her eyes in realization. "Oh, you were refering to the mango." She waved it off, boredly bracing her head with her palm as she gave a yawn. "Don't mention it."

"Tired?" he murmured without looking at her when he heard her yawn.

"Mh-hmm…"

"Was a pretty exhausting day after all."

"Mh…"

"But _tomorrow_," grinned Luffy, "Tomorrow, we'll be back home, definitely."

"… mh…"

"Well," he laughed, scratching his cheek, "That means, _you_ will have to wait a little until--"

Dumbfounded, Luffy paused in the middle of his sentence when he felt a sudden weight on his left shoulder. He glanced down in puzzlement and found himself looking directly at Vivi's skyblue head of hair. Her eyes were closed, her features were completely relaxed, exhaling even breath through her half-opened lips. Almost on its own, a soft smile crept to his face as he watched the princess sleep so peacefully and nestle up against his shoulder.

"Guess this day was much more exhausting for you than it was for me, eh?" he murmured quietly, his free hand reaching up to brush a blue strand of hair that was tickling her nose out of her face and behind her ear, then unconsciously grazing her cheek only with his finger tips, like a faint breeze, almost insensible… He quickly drew his hand back when he realized what exactly he was doing here and somewhat awkwardly ran a hand through his own hair, an unmistakable blush on his cheeks.

He stared into the campfire in embarrassment, happy that she didn't notice it or even worse, woke up because of it. She just kept sleeping, unfamiliary soundless, compared to his usual company at night and primarily the loudest sleeper on the face of earth, Zoro. Once again, he stole a peep down at Vivi from the corner of his eyes and again he just couldn't help but smile.

_Sleep tight, Vivi_.

He would do the night watch.

-- --

The next morning, Vivi woke up from the penetrating smell of stale smoke drifting from the extinguished campfire into her nose.

She sluggishly blinked through her half-closed eyelids and then cumbersomely rubbed over her eyes, until she realized that her head was resting on top of something warm and soft that gently rose and fell. When she eventually opened her eyes completely, turned her head to the left and tiredly peeked through her blue eyelashes, she recognized a bare chest and then Luffy's face. She needed a full minute of blinking to realize that she was lying with her head resting on his stomach and that the damn rubber captain was _again shirtless_.

Abruptly wide awake, she straightened up, her cheeks flushed and her eyes wide with shock, which served to make something flexible fall into her lap. She blinked down at her hands in bewilderment, realizing they were holding onto turquoise fabric. Wasn't that Luffy's shirt? Why had _she_ been covered with it? And when did she fall asleep in the first place?

However, just one moment after, she became aware of the fact that she must have been cold, so she smiled down at the sleeping captain, who was lying on the sandy ground of the clearing with his arms and legs stretched away from his body, smacking his lips and scracthing his cheek in his sleep. She bend over him with a smirk, covering him with his shirt, but even though she had initially intended to straighten up right after, she remained over him for a bit longer. Looking at his peaceful face, quietly giggling at the small line of saliva dripping from his mouth, until her gaze eventually reached the scar beneath his left eye.

_An odd place for a scar_, thought Vivi.

Ever since their first meeting, she had always wondered where he had gotten that scar from, but never found the appropriate moment to ask him. Maybe it was a souvenir from a fight? From an ambush? Or was it from back when he was a kid and was playing too roughly? While she was pondering over it, she didn't even realize that her hand was moving to his face, feathery tracing the scar's shape with her fingers. She couldn't see why, but something about this scar was surprisingly fascinating in a very obscure way. Or maybe it was simply Luffy's face that was casting a spell over her…?

Before she could find out, he turned his head away from her and Vivi shrunk back in an upright position, fearing he might have woken up. But when she realized he was still asleep, the princess breathed a deep sigh of relief and glanced over at the campfire where the smoke was slowly starting to evaporate. The end of the camping-dream. She sighed with a small smile.

_Now let's quickly find a way back to the ship_, she thought as the first sunbeam tickled her face.

Suddenly, she paused in puzzlement. Hold on. First sunbeam?

Her face instantly brightened.

_That's it!_

_-- --_

"6 o'clock in the morning. I'm in hell and you guys are the devils."

"Would you quit your shitty whining, Usopp," hissed Sanji in irritation, calmly lighting himself a cigarette while Nami next to him was already impatiently shuffling her sandals on the beach sand and crossing her arms in front of her chest with a haphazard glare. "All of you morons, Nami-san of course excluded as she needs her sleep, should wake up earlier more often anyway. That way, you get to enjoy more of the refreshing daylight."

Usopp defiantly kicked a small pebble against the first tree trunk close to him, burrying his hands in his pockets. "I get it, I get it. I was just saying, why _that_ early?" he complained. "I mean, 7 would've been totally sufficient, right?"

"Go thank our great Mister Vice Captain for this," Nami snarled sarcastically, rolling her eyes. "Who is by the way the only one still not here. Morning, Chopper!" She blithely grinned and waved at the little reindeer, who was sluggishly scuffing from the Going Merry in their direction.

"Morning," murmured the doctor tiredly and offered them a perfect glance at his pharynx as he yawned. Perplexed, he looked around. "Where's Zoro?"

Instantly, all three heads whirled around to him with a look in their eyes that was capable of freezing the whole blood rushing through ones veins. "_Not here yet_."

"_Hiieeek_!" Chopper shrank away in fear, meeting the next best rock with his back. "I'm sorry that I asked!"

"I knew right from the start that the useless bozo was gonna oversleep!" Sanji snapped aggressively to himself, puffing on his cigarette like a lunatic bull. "It would've been an outstanding miracle if that guy was on his feet early for once anyways! That scumbag is actually indeed insolent enough to really believe that it would be alright to rob my angelic Nami-san of her well-deserved sleep, but placidly continue too sleep himself! That no-good piece of shit!"

"That's right, Sanji-kun!" cheered Nami in satisfaction. "Don't hold back on him! He deserves whatever insult comes to your mind!"

Usopp arched a brow in disbelief. "Since when were you approving of Sanji's and Zoro's fights?"

Nami scowled. "Since that idiot robbed me of my important beauty sleep! How dare he!"

"Beauty sleep wouldn't manage to fix you," Chopper joked teasingly.

Two hands, a male and a female one, grabbed for his cheeks and pulled. "_What did you just say_," growled Nami and Sanji in unison, glaring darkly.

"_Hiieeek_! Usopp! Help me!"

Usopp grimaced, shaking his head vigorously and raising his hands. "No way in hell! Those two are scary when it comes to insulting Nami!"

"Jeez, you guys are noisy."

Everyone without exception instantly shut up and turned their head into the direction of the voice in puzzlement, spotting a green head of hair surfacing from behind a rock and shortly after, a hand running through the same head of hair was following. With an annoyed expression, Zoro turned his head around to face his comrades and shot them his usual, morose glare.

"I'm trying to take a nap over here, you know."

"I'll show you a _real long nap_ if you're so eager to take one, you caveman!" Nami yelled furiously and would have spontaneously let loose on the unimpressed swordsman if Usopp wouldn't have gotten a hold of her just in time. "Let go of me! I'll kill him for that stupid clueless expression he's giving us!"

"Calm down, Nami! It's not fair to punch someone who's just woken up!" said Usopp in an attempt to propitiate her.

"What _punch_!? I'm gonna tear him to pieces!"

Sanji gaped blankly at the self-proclaimed vice captain, pure shock written all over his face. "I thought you were a tussock growing on that rock the whole time."

Zoro scowled at him. "_Hah_?"

"So you were here all along?" asked Chopper in puzzlement just in time to prevent Zoro from dwelling on Sanji's unnecessary comment and thus a fight full of broken bones from erupting. "Why didn't you speak up until now?"

"Like I said, I was taking a nap," Zoro repeated monotonously.

"That was an unmistakable deathwish!" Nami roared furiously, but fortunately the sniper could get a hold of her again, before she could indeed tear the swordsman to pieces; nobody put it past her.

Zoro scratched the back of his head with a yawn, straightening up. "Oi, it's not my fault, okay?" he murmured. "You guys were taking so damn long that I thought I could doss down for some more."

Chopper blinked in confusion. "When did you get here?"

Zoro gave them a stare full of superior graveness. "At 5."

"WHAT!?"

"Nami-san, am I hallucinating?" whispered Sanji, leaning down to the navigator. "Did the shitty swordsman just really indicate that he was out here at 5 o'clock in the morning, which would mean that he woke up at approximately half past 4 to get dressed, take a shower--"

"Zoro doesn't take showers!" Chopper objected under his breath in shock.

"Okay, forget the shower. To get dressed, fullstop. Uh, question mark," murmured the cook, completely befuddled. "Did he just really say that?"

"He did, I heard it. Quite clearly even," whispered Nami back in equal disbelief. "We're witnessing the eighth World Wonder! We have to record this for ensuing ages! Usopp!"

"I'm at it," murmured Usopp in complete amazement, pulling out his scratchpad.

"I _can_ hear you guys, you know," grunted Zoro in irritation. "Anyway, when you return to earth from your little trip into outer space, we could maybe turn to the topics that are actually important for a change. Like, for example, _finding our captain_."

"Don't forget Vivi-chan!"

"Whatever," grumbled the swordsman and turned around to face Nami. "Copied map?"

Nami glared wordlessly at him for a while, but eventually held up a rolled up piece of parchment and waved it about a little in irritation. "Of course finished!"

"Flare guns and smoke grenades?" asked Zoro, looking at Usopp.

The sniper tediously pulled forth his full and obviously very heavy bag, patting the fabric proudly. "Preapred and loaded, Sir," he grinned.

Zoro nodded in satisfaction. "The lunch boxes, ero-cook?" Shortly after the question was spoken, an aluminum box hit his head and then landed in his hands. The swordsman rubbed over the throbbing spot at his forehead in anger. "We'll slug that out later, jackass!"

"I sure wanna see _that_, you moldy piece of broccoli," snarled the cook, before his personalitly took a turn of approximately 180 degrees, kneeling down on one knee in front of Nami and offering her a corny, pink box. "Here is your Love Lunch Box, fair queen of my soul! Sweet rice balls of love and a refreshing fruits salat from the bottom of my heart!"

Nami gave him a saccharine smile. "Why, thank you very much, Sanji-kun."

"Yuck," Zoro commented shortly with a grimace and then turned around to the little reindeer. "You have your whole stuff with you, Chopper?"

"I have," said Chopper with a nod. "Bandages, pain killers, penicillin, suture material, stethoscope, rubber gloves, iodine… I just hope I'm not gonna need them."

"Maybe you will," Zoro instantly clarified with a bitter expression. "You should all prepare yourselves for the worst case scenario. Don't get carried away by false hopes, we may be already too late."

Chopper gulped, his big round eyes starting to fill with tears that he tried to keep from pouring out with might and main, while Sanji placed his hand on Nami's shoulder, who bit her lower lip in concern and looked at the ground. Usopp stared at the swordsman, who gravely looked aside, with wide eyes and an expression of pure shock.

"Y-you think…" began the sniper, his voice quavering. "You think… they're already _dead_?"

"Did you really have to say that!?" Sanji yelled furiously, while Nami next to him gave a choked gasp. "You idiot! As if Luffy would ever get himself killed in some pathetic _jungle_! Same goes for Vivi-chan!"

"I-I'm sorry," murmured Usopp, conscience-stricken.

Zoro turned away. "There's no use in standing here, picturing what might've happened to them in the meanwhile. We should just go and find out for ourselves." He made a few steps into the jungle. "Chopper, you're coming with me."

"He's right," said Nami surprisingly composed and smiled at Usopp as she walked past him. "We'll find them! And they'll be alive!"

Usopp grinned back. "I know!" With his head raised high, he followed Nami together with Sanji next to him and proudly thumped on his chest. "You're lucky to have the Great Captain Usopp-sama by your side! I've lead more people out of jungles than there are stars at the sky!"

"Oh, you don't say," Sanji murmured wryly, flipping his cigarette into the next best bush. "And I've been the head of countless rescue missions as a five years old."

Usopp arched a brow in doubt. "You're a lousy liar."

"Look who's talking!" snapped Sanji.

Nami massaged her temples in irritation. "_Migraine_."

-- --

When Luffy woke up, it wasn't thanks to the sun that was fervently and violently shining down on him, but rather to ice cold pearls of water pouring down onto his face. At first it were just a few, but the longer he kept his eyes closed, the more water poured down, until he finally opened his eyes and tiredly peeped upwards. He vaguely recognized blurred contours, a human silhouette and much, _very_ much blue framing said figure like a veil. He needed to blink a few times until he spotted a cheerful grin and two hands pressing water out of blue hair directly onto him.

"Good morning, Luffy-san!"

Vivi beamed at him in a very good mood, straightened up again and threw her wet hair so full of verve over her shoulder that Luffy could hear them smack against her arm. With a gawky movement, he brought a hand up to wipe the water out of his face, eliciting a melodical giggle from her. When he rubbed the sleep out of his eyes then, he _finally_ realized that it was morning – and instantly sat bolt upright.

"SANJI! FOOD!"

After that primal scream that roused a few tropical brids or maybe even because of that, Luffy noticed his environment, the extinguished campfire, the small clearing in the middle of the giant trees and that Sanji, much to his misfortune, wasn't anywhere near to serve breakfast. Suddenly, the captain looked like someone had punched him in the gut at full throttle. His shoulders gloomily sagged down as he lowered his head in grief.

"…no food…"

Vivi giggled quietly as she kneeled down to him and placed a soothing hand on his shoulder. "I'm sorry, Luffy-san. Seems like you're going to have to put up with mangos for the time being," she said with an apologetic smile and Luffy nodded dolefully. But suddenly, the princess beamed again. "_But_!" she exclaimed cheerfully, straightened up once again and joyfully clapped her hands. "Instead I have good news and _very good_ news for you! Which do you wanna hear first?"

The pirate glanced up at her in weariness and shrugged his shoulders, still tarnished because of his missing, protein-rich breakfast. "Dunno. The good one."

The princess grinned and pointed over her shoulder. "I found a small stream over there, right behind the third tree on the left," she explained proudly. "And now check out the best part about it: It's fresh water! We can finally restock our store of water!"

Luffy's face actually lightened up upon hearing that. "Hey! That's what I call good news!"

"Yes, yes, but hear out the _very good_ news now!" exclaimed Vivi in pure excitement, a grin so large on her face that he was wondering why she wasn't jumping up and down, squealing in delight. "The sun," she proudly pointed ahead, "came up over there. That means that east is right that way!"

Luffy grinned at her. "Hey, that's cool!" he said and Vivi nodded cheerfully, but then he arched a brow in bewilderment. "Uh… but how exactly is that gonna help us?"

Vivi sighed, a smile on her face. "Moron. Don't you remember? When we went ashore yesterday, sun was rising right behind the Going Merry, right?"

"Uh… yeah? No? Yeah? Maybe?" Luffy answered irresolutely and then heedfully shrank back. "I don't remember, okay!" He arched a brow in doubt. "Is that a trick question?"

"It means that the ship is located to the east of our current location," explained Vivi without dwelling on his remarks. "So if we keep walking in _that_ direction," she grabbed his head and turned it to the right, so that he was looking in said direction, "we'll get back to the ship in no time."

When he turned around to her again, his eyes were sparkling so much that she feared he would actually start to cry of joy. "Wow, Vivi! You're so freakin' awesome!" he exclaimed in all honesty. "You'd sure make some brilliant navigator, you know that?"

"That's… actually just general knowledge, Luffy-san." She gave a nervous laugh.

"So what're we waiting for?" grinned the captain, while he stretched his arms in all possible directions at lightning speed to collect every single mango that was lying about. He desperately tried to stuff as much mangos in his backpack as possible, but unfortunately, already the fifth one was the last one that fit in. "Let's get going, I'm ready!"

Vivi stopped in her tracks. "Don't you wanna have a wash at all?"

"Why?" He blinked in confusion. "I'm not even dirty."

"That's where we disagree. You reek of sweat and…" She waved about her hand a little as if she was trying to form a sentence, grimacing. "And something I can't define." Luffy sceptically raised his eyebrows and plucked his shirt up to sniffle at it, but before he could object her, the princess had already moved behind him and began to shove him into the direction of the streaming. "C'mon, go! You really need it badly!"

"I get it, I get it," he whined, trotting after Vivi, who lead the way.

While she stepped over a bush to leave the clearing, Luffy suddenly felt an ice cold chill in his back for some reason he was completely unaware of. It started in the tip of his toes and slowly crawled its way up to his roots of hair, until an unpleasant shiver overcame him. It was almost as if… No. Or was it? At least, he couldn't interpret that invidious, albeit familiar feeling as anything else, because he knew it way too well. And that gut feeling never deceived him before.

His hands balled to fists, he abruptly jerked to a halt, his eyebrows furrowed. And then, like a shot, he heedfully turned his head around to the direction he assumed the reason for that ice cold chill to be.

But there was nothing.

Absolutely nothing at all.

Luffy frowned in bewilderment and relaxed a little. What an odd thing. And he had been so sure, too. That feeling was unmistakable and his instict had sounded the alarm at full blast. Should his instict have fooled him for the very first time? Was it the jungle's fault? When he had gotten that right from Vivi's explanations yesterday (which he wouldn't bet on, since the last time he had listened to some intellectual stuff, he had only done that for his grandfather and his Fist of Love's sake), then it was an undeniable fact that people who lost their way in a jungle tend to imagine all kinds of absurd things. More often than not out of fear, but that was even more absurd than the most absurd hallucination that occured to him (and he came up with _a lot_ of absurd things given the time) – he wasn't afraid after all, which made the whole thing even stranger.

"Luffy-san?" Vivi stared at him in puzzlement. "Is something wrong?"

Finally, he took his gaze off of that spot and forced his usual grin onto his face. "Nah, it's alright! Let's go!"

She smiled. "If you say so. This way!"

The captain nodded with a grin and followed her. While he was stepping over the bush, he peeped back to that spot from the corner of his eyes. _Weird_, he thought in bewilderment. _I was so sure that somebody was staring at me. _He shrugged his shoulders and blithely followed the princess to the streaming. _Oh well, whatever!_

And so he failed to see the pair of yellow eyes flashing up in the darkness of the jungle.

-- --

_Huh?_

Zoro abruptly jerked to a halt and wakefully whirled around. He furrowed his brows in concentration, listened into the distance and attentively stared at the road behind him. His pupils swiftly rolled to the left at first, then to the right, then he looked ahead again, the rest of his body was completely unmovable, like frozen.

And the next moment, the feeling was gone.

_Huh!?_

"Zoro?" Chopper glanced up at him in bewilderment. "What's the matter?"

For a few heartbeats, the swordsman only stared into the jungle in doubt, but then his eyes narrowed and he shook his head, barely visibly, but with a heedful expression. "Nothing," he answered and turned around. "Just the jungle."

Chopper gulped and walked after him with short, albeit swift steps to catch up with Zoro, who had brought quite a gap between them with his large steps. "What's up with the jungle?"

"Ants," Zoro replied matter-of-factly, making the doctor stop in his tracks, "in a labyrinth. Copared to this jungle, we're nothing but pathetic ants in a giant labyrinth."

Chopper chuckled nervously. "You talk like an old man."

But it almost seemed like the vice captain was ignoring his remark completely. "Chopper, you need to engrain our way and keep your eyes peeled," he said gravely. "We mustn't stop being on our guard. Or else, we'll never get out of this jungle again."

"Y-yeah," agreed the little doctor bravely. "Jungles are like labyrinths. Got that."

"It's particularly _this_ jungle. _This_ jungle is different from the others."

Chopper looked up in puzzlement, an expression on his face that clearly displayed a mixture of sorrow, fear and confusion. "What do you mean?"

Zoro frowned. "We were in Little Garden where dinosaurs and giants were living. But even though those are true monsters that most people only know from history books and legends, my gut feeling didn't react to them. Not at all." Although he was feeling unease inside of him for some reason, his face and voice didn't suggest any of that. "The _aura_ wasn't there. The aura that this jungle emits… Little Garden didn't have it in the slightest."

"A-aura?" stuttered Chopper, feeling queasy.

"I don't know _what_ kind of monsters lurk here," he murmured in concern, his face darkened, his palms were already moist. "And I really don't wanna scare you or anything, but…"

_But_…

Chopper gulped once more and almost didn't dare to ask. "B-but…?"

"But dinosaurs and giants," said Zoro, "are like a fart in a hurricane compared to what's walking abroad _here_. I feel it."

_I feel it deep down in my guts._

"_Pray_ that Luffy and Vivi are still alive, Chopper."

-- --

"The true root of the stench," proclaimed Vivi with a grimace as she held up the turquoise shirt with two fingers and an almost disgusted expression, "is this shirt."

Luffy glared defiantly at her from the corner of his eyes, while he washed his hands in the crystal clear fresh water of the small streaming. "Look who's talking," he growled. "I bet you don't smell all that good either!"

"What was that!" snapped the princess indignantly with swelled, albeit flushed cheeks, while she dipped his shirt deeply into the water to get rid of the bothersome stench. "You can't tell a girl such an incredibly nasty, bold, insolent, mean thing right into the face, you insensitive klutz!"

"Why not? You _can_ tell me something like that after all," murmured Luffy as if it was general knowledge. "So why can't _I_ tell you that, too? Boys and girls, that's the same thing, really. People are people. And when they stink, they stink."

"But I don't stink!" snapped Vivi. "_You_ stink!"

"It'd be pretty weird if pirates wouldn't stink, anyway," he said almost proudly. "_All_ pirates stink."

She gave a triumphant smirk. "Sanji-san is a pirate, but he never stinks."

"If you and Nami wouldn't be there, then he _would_!" claimed Luffy cast-iron, albeit (probably) wrongly.

Realizing that she couldn't come up with a matching answer, her mouth snapped shut wordlessly and she looked aside, angry at his victory, murmuring, "Why the sudden talk about stench anyway?"

"Whoa! Look at this, Vivi!" exclaimed the captain, suddenly in a perfectly good mood, with a large grin on his face and eyes sparkling so much that it was almost dazzling. He proudly held up a green, transparent stone as though it was the greatest trophy on the face of earth. "A jewel! I found a jewel!"

Vivi blinked at the green something in his hand in silence for a while, but then she shook her head with a smile. "That's not a jewel, Luffy-san," she said. "It's a piece broken of glass, smoothed by the salt in the ocean. Those may be pretty, but unfortunately, they're also totally worthless."

The captain placed a hand over his heart in relief. "Thank goodness!" he exclaimed and instantly stuffed the piece of broken glass in his pocket. "Then Nami's not gonna take it away from me. Hehehe." While Vivi quietly giggled at this, Luffy blithely added, "So that means we're not the only people on this island, right?"

The princess instantly silenced down, her eyes wide. "E-eh?"

"Well, only bottles have green glass. And what're animals supposed to do with bottles?" explained Luffy in his own weird and for once sense making kind of way. But suddenly, his eyes began to gleam. "Whoa! Or do you think there are mystery animals on this island who drink out of bottles? That'd be so freakin' cool!"

"No, no, that piece of glass probably came from the oce--" She paused in the middle of her sentence, her eyes widening in disbelief. "Oh my God! This is fresh water! That glass couldn't have possibly come from the ocean!"

"Yup, yup, impossible," Luffy agreed with a grin. Probably just for the sake of having said it, rather than indeed _knowing_ that it was impossible.

"You know what that means, Luffy-san?" exclaimed Vivi in pure excitement, grasping for his shoulders. "There's maybe someone else except us! Maybe there's even a _village_ on this island! A whole _town_! Just a few steps from here!"

Luffy's grin grew only larger. "Yup! Exactly!"

"We're saved! And it's all thanks to you and that piece of glass!" The princess was so happy that she looked like she was on the brink of bursting into tears of joy. "All we have to do is follow the streaming upwards!"

"All right! So let's go! To the meat!" proclaimed the captain determinedly, straightening up.

"Oh no," Vivi said resolutely, pulling him down by his pants. "First you finish your washing. I really don't wanna smell any more sweat today."

Luffy swelled his cheeks in offence. "No fair." But he still sat down unresistant, let his feet dangle in the water and dipped his hands into the liquid once more. From the corners of his eyes, he could see Vivi smile in satisfaction, while she was washing his shirt and he was spreading the water on his arms. But then he paused in puzzlement and watched her with an astonished smile, how she was washing the shirt like she never did anything else in the rest of her life. "Wow, that's really funny."

Vivi looked up. "Hm? What's funny?"

"Well, the way you do that," he explained, pointing at her activity with his shirt. "And just everything. Somehow, you're nothing like what I always pictured a princess to be." She raised her brows with a bewildered smile and Luffy laughed bashfully, scratching his cheek. "I mean, everyone's got that special image of a princess in his head after listening to all those fairy tales as a toddler. No clue about housework, flashy, talks weird, reserved and everything…"

"And I'm not like that," she concluded with a smirk.

Luffy shook his head, grinning. "Not at all. You're really cool." His grin grew a little larger. "Well, there's maybe one thing you have in common with those princesses I always imagined."

Vivi raised her brows in curiosity. "Really? What is it?"

He bashfully gazed at the water. "You're all…" Vivi listened intently, but the last word disappeard in the ripple of water as Luffy dunked his whole head inside. When he came up again and grinned at her with soaking wet hair, Vivi could only gape at him in utter incomprehension. "But that's about it, really."

"Hey! Wait a second!" said the princess. "I didn't catch the last word! We're all _what_?"

Luffy stuck his tongue out at her. "Tough luck. I don't feel like repeating it."

"I don't care! Tell me!" Vivi demanded persistently.

"Nope."

"Tell me!"

"_Nope_."

"TELL ME!"

"Pfft," he laughed. "You're really nothing like a princess at all."

Vivi blushed in shame, she probably took it as some kind of insult. Moping, she splashed water into his face with one hand, ashamedly looking aside. "Tch," she growled. "I was active as an agent in a merciless, thoroughly evil organization for two years. I would've totally blew my cover if I acted like some spoilt princess."

"Excuses, nothing but excuses," Luffy grinned teasingly. "I bet you were always like that and came to blows with boys and everything."

She was instantly and inevitably reminded of her time with the Suna Clan and blinked at the captain in surprise. Her anger evaporated and was replaced by a melancholic smile. "Maybe," she quietly said. "And maybe not." When she saw Luffy's grin that instantly conveyed to her that he knew very well that the latter was the case, she turned her head away in indignation. "Don't give me that grin, I'm still mad at you for not telling me what you said!"

"Huh?" The captain pounded against his ear with a palm and a blank look to squeeze the non existent water out of his other ear. "Did you say something? I think there's water in my ear."

"Liar!" Vivi snapped indignantly and glared at him, while Luffy innocently, albeit definitely triumphantly whistled a song through his teeth that he probably came up with by himself (Vivi could tell because the tunes were the most wrong ones she ever heard). When she looked back at the, now clean, shirt in her hands, a small smile crept to her lips. She dragged the fabric out of the water and while she squeezed it out and thereby thought back at when she woke up covered with the the shirt, she could not keep herself from blushing. "Um… b-by the way…"

Luffy looked up. "Hm?" The next moment, his soaking wet shirt landed on top of his head. He plucked it from his face in bewilderment and arched a brow when he saw the blushing princess bashfully playing with her fingers.

"I… wanted to say…" she stammered awkwardly. "Th-thanks… for covering me with your shirt when I was cold at night."

A grin crept to his lips. "Heh. You're welcome."

"I'll…go get our stuff."

Vivi quickly arose and turned on her heels, but before she could leave, Luffy grabbed for her wrist. She turned around to him in puzzlement and right in that moment, he pulled her down at her hand, so that she was forced to bend down to him. And when she saw that serious look in his eyes, that damn rare serious look, the same serious look he had when he told Miss All Sunday to get lost, the same look he had when he apologized to the villagers of Drum, the same look he had when he suggested yesterday to find a place to sleep, her heart skipped a beat.

"Luffy-san…?"

"Wait," he murmured and smiled. "Before you go…"

Vivi gulped and felt heat rising to her cheeks. "Wh-what?"

All of a sudden, his smile turned into a mischievous grin and before she knew what was happening or could even see it remotely coming, the pirate began shaking his head with might and main like a stray dog to get rid of the unnecessary water in his fur, excuse me, _hair_ – and of course, everything landed directly in Vivi's face.

"H-hey! HEY!" shouted the princess indignantly, vainly trying to jerk herself free. "What in the world are you doing!?"

Bursting out laughing, Luffy stopped shaking his head and gave a teasing grin, his hair looking like exploded. "_Revenge_," he said and let go of her wirst. "For the wake-up call."

Filled with indignation, the princess' jaw dropped down. She gaped wordlessly at him for a while, but after she had wiped the water from her face with one hand, she pushed the captain at his shoulders and with all strength she could find in herself backwards straight into the stream. In satisfaction and thoroughly gleeful, she registered the loud splash when Luffy met with the water, patting off her hands with a smirk before she turned away, her head held high.

"Hurry up, Luffy-san! The sooner we get going, the faster we'll find other humans!" she called over her shoulder.

Meanwhile, Luffy coughed up some water while he sat up and thanked God that fresh water did _not_ rob him off his strength like sea water did. He scowled at the back of the princess until she was gone. "She really doesn't have much in common with those other princesses," he murmured to himself, supremely offended. "She's _totally_ different."

But she _was_ as cute as them. Somehow.

**To Be Continued...**


	3. Ford

**Theme: **#03 – jolt!**  
Disclaimer: **I don't own any of the fabulous, perfect, godlike characters that will make an appearance in this story as I am most definitely not Eiichiro Oda. I do, however, entirely own Ford.

**Notes:  
**Jeez, writer's blocks always decide to annoy me at the wrong time. I just couldn't bring myself to write this chapter, but I mentally kicked my own ass to finish this in my last night before my vacation.

But, honestly speaking, I'm kinda disappointed in myself after writing it. Something just seems... weird. Writing action scenes is pretty hard...

Anyway, thank you for all your nice reviews. I really appreciate it!

-- --

My Hungry Heart

**THREE: Ford**

**-- --**

It was _humongous._

At least speaking from Vivi's point of view from the ground, even though she could only see it out of the corner of her eyes, since she didn't dare to pull her face out of the mud to turn toward it for a better look. But _what_ she could make out was its size. She could at least fathom it by judging from its leastwise twelve inches long claws of its hind legs to the rest of the creature. She saw dark-green, scaly skin with a few gray spots. She watched in disgust as yellowish slime dripped to the ground, and where else would it come from if not from the monster's mouth? She didn't even want to know how big that thing's teeth were, especially not from a close angle…

To sum it up, her current situation was looking pretty much like this: She was lying gagged in the dirt with her face being pressed in the mud, one of her arms was probably dislocated, and above her were the heavy gasps of an unutterable monster with gigantic claws, supposedly just as big teeth and an emetic bad breath.

And the glorious Monkey D. Luffy was sitting behind the monster, with a gaping mouth and eyes as big as plates, just… staring.

_Wordlessly. _Meaning, _without words._

And she could already see it coming; it was welling up inside of him, the one sentence that would put an end to their lives in an instant, leisurely, like an air bubble fighting its way to the surface of the water. But it was inching closer and closer, and even closer to his already dangerously open mouth. Unceasingly, direful, speaking a silent death sentence.

The princess frantically tried to make him understand telepathically with pure concentration that _this_ – even though deep down inside of her there was still the small shrub of hope sprouting that this thing was nothing but a genetically manipulated, much too big lizard – was an embodied flashback to Little Garden. (_Flashback. "Dinosaurs!" Flashback end.) _A _humongous_ embodied flashback. Vivi thought she had discovered over her shoulder while running earlier that it was a Tyrannosaurus Rex, at least that beast bore much more resemblance to that than to anything else that came to her mind. Still, so said her memory, something about this thing was completely different from your average dinosaur. Not only the extraordinary agility that usually only a cat of prey possessed, even the structure of the scales and, honestly, since when did a T-Rex run on four legs?

_Do not move_, she told herself over and over again. _Whatever you do, don't move and it won't see you. So do not move._

That method had at least shown use up until now, even if she could not quite explain as to why that monster was still pausing above her; it was sniffling at her for minutes now, nudging her with its nose every now and then and covering her in its slimy slobber. And Luffy was still sitting there motionless, like a pillar of salt.

And _staring_.

Vivi felt a very, very queasy feeling soaring up inside of her. It was crawling forward from all her various body regions, finally culminating in her stomach. In the end, she could only send a quick prayer to heaven and hope, hope against all hope, that he was god damn it not about to do what she thought that he was about to do.

_Please, Luffy-san_. Pleading in her mind, she squeezed her eyes shut so firmly that her head almost began to ache a little. _Please, Luffy-san, don't do it. Don't do it. Don't do it._

Her telepathic messages never hit their target, since something different was obviously making such great demands on Luffy's brain that everything else seemed to completely bounce off of him. The corners of his mouth were rising, turning his gaping amazement into an amazed grin. And then he did something that made Vivi swear to herself that if they would die now and go to heaven, she _would_ – _oh yes, she WOULD – _beg God on her knees to resurrect them both so that she could kill Luffy once again: He drew a deep breath.

In a last hopeless attempt, she sent another quick prayer, that is, she actually sent two; one to heaven, and one to Luffy, _Please don't. Don't do it. Please don't do it, Luffy-san._

But the glint in his eyes unmistakable meant _that_.

_He's gonna do it_, thought Vivi, closer to breaking out in tears than ever before.

"OH HOLY SHIT, THIS IS _WAY_ TOO AWESOME!"

She desperately tried to drown herself in the mud; they were as good as dead anyway.

Now, how did they get into this again? _Ah_, that's right. Of course, what else would it be? After all, there was only _one_ plausible reason for this coming to one's mind when observing the whole scene carefully.

After all, she was with _Monkey D. Luffy. _The very same Monkey D. Luffy who was drawing danger like a god damn magnet.

And everything started out so good too.

-- --

Two hours before, when Luffy and Vivi sat forth for their way back to the ship or their march to find other people (both were welcomed possibilities) without suspecting the least, Sanji _was_ already suspecting something. Not much, nothing concrete, just an approaching small, big, medium-sized, whatever kind of disaster. If it would have been Usopp being haunted by this misgiving, he would be sure to give whatever sort of End-of-the-World-preaches, and even someone like Zoro or even Nami would have given some kind of warning, just in the unlikely case that their gut feeling was right.

But this was _Sanji_.

The very same Sanji whose countenance, as is known, can't be broken by anything. Least of all by some pathetic misgiving that probably wasn't true anyway. After all, this was _the_ _jungle_, so a queasy gut feeling belonged to the everyday life of these surroundings like breathing and eating. Probably, or so he made himself believe, it was only thanks to the fact that they clarified from the beginning that when the possibility that even somebody like Luffy could very well already be dead wasn't nearly as farfetched as it sounded, then himself, Usopp and even his beloved Nami could be food within the course of only the blink of an eye.

And that was why he shoved the feeling to the back of his head where it belonged. And noted in silence that every jungle was the same: Unpredictable and terrifying.

It was gnawing at his subconscious anyhow, but when his angel decided to open her delicious mouth and grace them with her beautiful voice, everything was instantly forgotten, "Eww, what the heck is that smell?"

"Sorry, I farted!" Usopp admitted unashamedly as he timidly looked around.

Timid farting then, Sanji concluded matter-of-factly and grimaced in disgust. "It smells more like you freakin' _decomposed_."

"Sorry, sorry! It's because we had beans for breakfast. I can't help it, when I eat beans I fart like a whoopee cushion…"

"Could we _please _stop the fart-talk?" snored the chef. "There's a lady with us."

"I loathe jungles," murmured Nami to change the subject, subtly trembling, as she, much to his utter delight, shifted closer to Sanji. "They're so dark and full of disgusting sounds."

"Do not fret, my saccharine jungle queen, I'll protect you with my life!" Sanji assured her, visibly dancing on Cloud Nine.

"M-mark my words," stuttered Usopp, his voice quavering and his knees trembling, as he also moved closer to Sanji. "Death lurks behind each and every corner. _Behind each corner._ Behind _each--_"

"We get the idea, thank you very much!" snapped the cook in irritation, tearing his arm away from Usopp's grasp. "And stop invading my personal bubble, you shitty wimp. The space around my body is only reserved to my radiant Nami-san."

Usopp had a look in his eyes that would have melted every guy's heart away in an instant – if he would be a woman. "B-but jungles are so dark… and…" But all of a sudden, his personality took a drastic turn, just like the weather did when it changed from sunny to stormy, as he realized what he was saying. "And… and besides, I just wanted to protect you! That's right! You ungrateful snob!"

"So why don't you go ahead then, Usopp," suggested Nami, a sweet and sickly (however clearly also mischievous) smile on her face. "I'm sure that all those horrid and hungry creatures of the jungle won't dare to set even one foot close to us when they spot the _Great Captain Usopp-sama_."

When Usopp instantly turned so pale that he was almost transparent, Sanji had to suppress a grin. _She's so evil, my Nami-san_, he thought in amusement. _But that's exactly why I love her!_

Usopp gulped. "O-of course," he stuttered, walking ahead with shaking legs. "The Great Captain Usopp-sama will protect his nakama even if it means certain… d-death!"

"Oh yeah, I feel very protected," Sanji murmured wryly to the navigator who simply sighed.

"C-come at me, you monsters! You beasts! All you horrors that are walking abroad!" yelled the liar into the darkness, pulling out his – admittedly not very scary-looking – slingshot. "I-I'm prepared and armed! Ye-he-hes! I have a giant _bazooka _with a firepower that already destroyed whole islands! And I do have the heart to use it!"

Sanji groaned. "I bet all those beasts are already shitting their pants back there."

"Sanji-kun!" whispered Nami with a restrained giggle into her palm. "You're so mean! He's serious, you know!"

"That's exactly what makes it so damn sad."

Nami launched out a shocked laugh. "Sanji-kun!"

"Oh yeah, just go ahead and make fun of me, you pair of fools!" exclaimed Usopp, turning around with a swelled chest, suddenly not cowardly anymore at all. "Soon you're gonna grovel before me in eternal gratitude and humbly beg for me to forgive you after I saved you guys from a horrifying mixture of a lizard and a cat of prey!"

"Well, what are the odds of something like _that_ actually happening?" growled the cook, taking a puff from his cigarette.

"Higher than you might think, Sanji!" declared Usopp with a direful voice. "You never know what's awaiting you behind the next tree as you find yourself being drawn deeper and deeper into the depths of the jungle. You can really count yourselves lucky to have _me_, Usopp the Jungle Conqueror, right by your side to rescue you from the roots of evilness!" He brought a hand under his chin, smiling a knowing smile. "As you two ignorant people will surely have missed out, there's this special aura surrounding me which awes the animals right away", Sanji groaned in annoyance, "and so you really have absolutely no reason to be afraid. As long as I'm with you, you'll be safe!"

But when the bush right behind the marksman began to rustle in that very moment, his claim was proved untrue, for nobody could blink as fast as Usopp was holing up behind Sanji; even his _scream_ took longer to reach them than the liar himself. Nami also swallowed down a great deal of fear and grabbed for Sanji's arm, who only stared at the bush, calmly and straight-faced, curious about what would appear.

"We're dead," Usopp murmured apathetically from behind the cook. "We're gonna die, we're dead, as dead as a doornail, as a dodo, as a mutton, stone-dead, just simply dead, death, doom, hell, horror, devil, pain, adieu."

"Wh-what's gonna come out…?" whispered Nami in fear.

Sanji only narrowed his eyes and continued to stare. The rustling grew heavier and heavier, louder and louder and in the moment where the suspense was about to kill everyone, the horror was much bigger when suddenly a brown fur ball came rolling out from the bush. The trio blinked in complete bafflement as the fur ball untangled itself, revealing a cute muzzle and big saucer eyes. The cat-like animal baby launched out a small meow and stared at them. When it even cocked its head, Nami couldn't help it anymore.

"Aww!" she exclaimed, clasping her hands in delight. "How adorable! I wanna cuddle it!"

While Nami walked over to the little lion without hesitation, Sanji peered down at the stunned Usopp in exasperation. "Our hero," he mocked monotonously. "I don't know what we would've done without you. You really intimidated that big bad beast with your aura. How can we ever express our gratitude."

At first the sniper blushed with shame, but he was quick to do a proud pose again. "Ha, there you have it! With my supernatural aura, I transformed the terrifying lion back to a baby!"

"All right, _now_ it's getting absurd!" snapped Sanji.

"Aw, poor thing. Her hind leg got tangled up in the bush. It's stuck in there", said Nami, observing the small lion's hind leg, which was completely enveloped by a strange climber. She smiled as she patted its head. "There, there, cutie. I'll untie you."

Usopp blinked. "How do you know it's a she?"

"Female intuition," grinned Nami as she tried to loosen the climber from the animal's leg.

"Oh Nami-san, your female intuition makes you only more beautiful! When I see you, I'm always reminded that true perfection really does exist!" purred Sanji.

She knitted her brows, ignoring Sanji completely. "It's really tight", she murmured more to herself, still trying to handle the plant. "As if someone tied it around the leg on purpose."

"Let me have a look, Nami", said Usopp, kneeling down beside her and pulling out his pocket knife. Nami moved out of the way to let the sharpshooter have a better look on the climber. As soon as he took it in his hand and felt the structure, his brows furrowed, realization striking him like a lightning. "No wonder you would think that. This is no plant – it's a rope, disguised as a climber."

"What!?" exclaimed the navigator in surprise. "A rope!? Are you really sure about that?"

Usopp nodded. "I'd know human work when I see it. And this is definitely one," he said, and then pointed at a small knot in the rope. "You see that? It's a sailor's knot. So natives couldn't have done it."

Nami's eyes widened. "A sailor's knot? So you're trying to say that either Luffy or Vivi did that?"

"On the contrary," said the liar. "Vivi's a princess, so it's pretty safe to assume that she has no clue about sailor's knots and Luffy doesn't even know how to pronounce it. Besides," he paused and frowned, "this is a knot that I only saw marines using up until now."

"But this island is _uninhabited_," said Nami. "Zoro and I walked around the whole island and found neither human life, nor a marine ship anywhere. It _can't_ be a marine."

"Unless there's a castaway somewhere on this island," speculated Usopp.

Nami pondered with him. "That's a possibility, but it still doesn't quite explain this," she said, watching Usopp cutting through the rope around the animal baby's leg with his pocket knife. The small lion instantly turned to its injured hind leg and began to lick at the wound devotedly. "After all, it's a pretty odd thing to tie a lion baby at a bush. Why would someone do that?"

"Maybe to make sure that it won't end up like _this_."

Nami and Usopp turned around to Sanji in bewilderment. The cook had been suspiciously silent for quite a while now and so it was not that surprising to see him standing with his back turned to them about fifteen feet away in front of a clearing. The lion baby instantly got to its feet and dashed in Sanji's direction, followed by the navigator and the sniper. When they arrived there, it was instantly as plain as day to them that this clearing was nowhere near a natural clearing, as well as the path they had taken up until now was no natural path. Apparently, the palms and bushes had been downright steamrollered, even if not as clean as a real steamroller would have done it. And in the middle of the clearing there was…

Nami gasped when an incredibly strong feeling of sickness occurred to her and instantly turned around again with a hand clasped over her mouth. She found her face being pressed against Sanji's chest as the chef embraced her with one arm. While she squeezed her eyes shut and Sanji sighed into his cigarette, Usopp's face formed to a grimace between disgust and sympathy. The meowing of the lion baby grew louder and more penetrating as it nudged the lifeless, blood-soaked body of its mother over and over, no matter if it got itself soaked with blood too.

"Holy crap," muttered Usopp into his palm. His terrified eyes were not able to stand the picture much longer, but he couldn't look away either. It was one of those scenes that were too horrible to look away, even though you may want to. "Who in Roger's name did that?"

"You mean _what_," corrected Sanji much calmer than he should be. "A human couldn't possibly have done that."

Nami quietly sobbed into Sanji's shirt. "It's horrible," she whispered. "God, it's so horrible."

"If you ask me," said the chef, "then Mr. Incognito (Usopp: "And just who is that?") tied the lion baby because it would've run after its mother, who was in the middle of a fight, and probably even would've tried to help her out somehow. Mr. Incognito knew right from the start that the mother didn't stand a chance and that the kid would just end up as dessert, so he tied it up to at least save one of them. Then he tried to help the mother, but only got himself eaten in one bite."

"How did you come up with all that?" Usopp asked sceptically, Nami also calmed down a bit and gave Sanji a puzzled look.

Sanji smiled a slightly superior smile. "That's easy," he said and pointed to the left. "Over there is a shoe. Which by the way I will refer to as Piece of Evidence A from now on."

"Beautifully combined, Mr. Holmes," admitted Usopp.

"Why, thank you very much, Watson," Sanji grinned proudly.

"All well and good, detective boy," Nami cut in, arching a brow and crossing her arms. "But that still doesn't explain what exactly could be so… _huge_ to actually tear down whole trees, mangle a lion and devour a human."

Sanji brought a hand under his chin, resolving to buy himself a pipe on the next island – for the next time. "Good point," he said. "I guess that the culprit (Nami: "Will you stop that detective-talk already!") was about three times as big as an average lion. At least, that would be the only logical assumption."

Nami's eyes widened, Usopp gulped. For a while there was a tense silence in the air, in which the only sounds to be heard were the painful crying of the lion baby and the fizzling of a match when Sanji lit himself a cigarette (instead of a pipe).

"Now I'm really worried about Luffy and Vivi-chan," said the chef.

Usopp gave a dry laugh. "Judging from you admitting so easily that you're also worried about _Luffy_, the two of them really are doomed."

Nami said nothing and only continued to stare at her two crewmates.

She could see in Usopp's face what he was thinking as clearly as the day – _are Luffy and Vivi already dead? _It was as if it was written on his forehead. And when her gaze flitted over at Sanji, she realized in confusion that his expression came pretty close to Usopp's, however he was probably thinking something like: _I'll kill that shitty thing if it harmed them somehow. _Nami looked at the ground, listening to her own thoughts, waiting for a signal of her inner voice. She wasn't nearly as pessimistic as Usopp even though she _was_ concerned about Vivi, nor as fierce as Sanji, since this was about Monkey D. Luffy.

The day that Luffy got himself beaten was, at least in her world, the day that was never going to dawn and she desperately counted on that. It was the only certainty one could really trust in. It was as safe as the sun coming up every day and as safe as there was water and air. It was a _fact_. It was no wishful thinking, naive trust or insane belief. It was like set in stone that Luffy would not die. Not on an island like this. And not by an animal like that.

"Luffy's going to be the Pirate King," she suddenly said, both men looked up at her in surprise. She grinned, but there were tears in her eyes anyhow. "So he can't die, right?"

Sanji gave her a look of pure sympathy. "Nami-san…"

"As long as Luffy is staying with Vivi, everything should be okay. Nothing can happen to her," she said, even though none of them really knew who she was actually trying to convince. "So everything should be fine."

Sanji, who immediately knew that she was just looking for reassurance, forced a smile. "Yes, Nami-san," he said. "Everything's fine."

Usopp nodded with an encouraging grin on his face. "Everything's fine, Nami. Definitely."

"Yup." Nami grinned back. "Everything's fine."

-- --

"Hoist the anchor and off we cast!"

There was a deep sigh. "Yo ho, heave ho."

"Our heart is black and our greed is so vast!"

Another sigh. "Yo ho, heave ho."

"Aye, they pillage and they murder too," Luffy sang cheerfully, "that horrible captain and his scary crew! The devil's comrades, lo and behold, they'll kill everyone for a sack of gold!" His grin was incredibly wide, obviously he was enjoying himself. "Hoist the colour to flaunt in the wind!"

Unlike Vivi, who sighed for third time as he pointed a demanding finger at her, singing rather monotonously, "Yo ho, heave ho."

"Our loot, it comes and goes with the sin!"

"Why a _pirate song_, anyways?" asked the princess, abruptly cutting off their shared singsong as she climbed over a thick root. "Shouldn't we rather pitch a hiking song or something along those lines?"

Luffy offered her a superior smile, shaking his index finger at her. "Tch, tch, tch," he teased. "Vivi, sometimes you're really dumber than you look."

Her cheeks flushed with anger. "H-hey!"

"We," Luffy declared meaningfully, stemming his hands in his sides, "are pirates! And not _hikers_." He said the latter like it was some very contagious disease.

Vivi opened her mouth to answer him back, to make clear that _she_ was not (yet?) a pirate, but something, she didn't know exactly what, stopped her from doing it. Not a single sound rolled over her tongue, it felt like there was an invisible hand on her mouth, which was why she closed it again, confused by her own thoughts. Did she _want_ to be a pirate? Did _he_? Why did he insist so persistently to always include her whenever he was speaking about things like 'we' and 'pirates' and 'nakama'?

She did not (yet?) know an answer to this question.

The one thing she could do was smile. Smile and sigh. "Right."

Luffy nodded, pretending to be someone serious (probably Zoro). "On with the show then," he said, drawing breath for the second verse, "They drown their conscience in a bottle of rum – and sometimes they even whack someone! Aye, they punch on another with might and main – and if someone dies it's at least not in vain!"

When he turned around to her with a grin full of expectation then, the princess blushed with shame. "I-I don't wanna sing that! Not _that_!"

"Why not?" Luffy asked defiantly and knitted his brows in a snit. "That word's funny."

"That word is _stupid_—wait, it's not even a word to begin with," Vivi replied in bewilderment.

The captain rolled his eyes (which looked funny for some reason; maybe because this was her first time seeing him do that kind of gesture). "Just because _you_ don't know that word doesn't mean that it doesn't _exist_," he declared determinedly. After a moment, his eyes flashed up as an idea occurred to him, and he gave her a bold grin. "But it's okay if you don't wanna sing along with me. Just go ahead and be a killjoy then."

Vivi's jaw dropped down. _Killjoy!?_

With flushed cheeks, she gathered up all her courage and squeezed her eyes shut. "H-hulabaka," she sang quietly, "hulabaka, you thought wrong…"

Luffy snickered about his triumph and continued, "The terrible things are yet still to come!"

"H-hulabaka, hulabaka, beware of our force…"

"Once the treasure is found, disaster takes course!" he sang loudly. And now he could finally sing the chorus, his favourite part of the song, "Hoist the anchor and turn alee!"

Vivi scowled at the ground, not thrilled at all. "Yo ho, heave ho…"

"No, no, no, no, no!" Luffy suddenly exclaimed like an expressionist whose painting had been mortally insulted. "This doesn't work! You just keep on doing it wrong!"

She blinked at the pirate in confusion as he shook his head. "Eh?"

He turned around to her, eccentrically throwing his arms in the air as if he was about to announce the Last Judgement. "You've gotta put your soul into it and sing as loud as you can! It has to be fun, you know?" He tucked his fingers into the corners of his mouth, stretching his elastic lips out to a superhuman grin. "Jusht grin like me, Vivi! Then it worksh like magic!"

Vivi grimaced for a bit, but quickly snapped out of it to force an irritated grin to her lips. Then she made another attempt, however still listless, "Yo ho, heave ho."

"WRONG!" declared the captain, shaking his head. "Just laugh!"

The princess scowled at him. "I can't laugh on cue, Luffy-san!"

"Hmph." Sulking a little, Luffy stared back until a new idea occurred to him. His eyes flashed up, his mouth formed a sharp grin. "Unless…"

Vivi gulped puzzled when he gloomily raised his hands as if he was the big bad wolf about to devour her, the poor Little Red Riding Hood, neck and crop. "U-unless _what_?"

"Unless I force you to laugh!" And sure enough, the next moment Luffy lunged at her and started to tickle her so roughly that it was simply impossible suppress the laughter for too long.

However Vivi, as pigheaded as she was, still forced herself to keep her countenance and hence her face began to form the funniest expressions within the next seconds that Luffy had ever seen on her: It started out with a simply bite on her lower lip, then her whole face flushed crimson until her cheeks puffed and her eyes started to tear. Until she couldn't keep it in any longer and burst out laughing.

"S-stop it!" shrieked the princess, laughing helplessly.

Luffy grinned mischievously, singing once more, "Hoist the anchor and turn alee!"

Vivi, who immediately knew that this torture would probably only stop when she joined in, rather laughed than really sang, "Y-yo hooo, heave ho!"

His grin grew larger, he was obviously satisfied. "All the secrets are safe in the sea!"

"Yo hooo, h-heave ho!" laughed Vivi, gasping for air.

"When the sails are set and the wind takes a breath, the dirty lot will accept even death!" sang the captain, still tickling Vivi. "With a ship full of pirates, from the rear to the bow, there's no telling when there'll be a blow! Hoist the colour and do your bit!"

"Lu-Luffy-san," gasped Vivi between giggles, trying vainly to pull his hands away from her waist, convulsed with laughter. "P-please stop! It's too much!"

"Siiing," hummed Luffy, grinning. "Or else I'll never stop and you'll be tickled by me for the rest of your life! For eternity and even longer! So sing!"

For a heartbeat, the absolutely absurd and extremely confusing thought occurred to her that it didn't sound that bad at all; forever and eternity and rest of the life, as long as his name showed up in there. But she lacked the time to wonder about it much longer, for the next fit of laughter was already shaking her up. Well, whatever – if singing was going to help him stop, she would just sing.

"Yo ho, heave ho!"

"We're pirates!" Luffy sang while he laughed. "Pirates and that is it!"

"I-it's really too much," Vivi barely managed to choke out as she vainly kept on pinching his rubber-hands, which he apparently didn't even feel.

Luffy shook his head determinedly, giving her a superior grin. "No-hope, first you finish the song!"

"N-no, it's _really_ too much!" she laughed almost a little whiny-voiced, taking a few steps backwards to escape him that way; however Luffy wasn't shaken off that easy and simply walked along. "My tummy is already hurting!"

"So siiing then!" grinned Luffy as she kept on walking backwards.

"Y-yo ho—"

Before any of the two could grasp the situation, Vivi's heel got tangled up in one of the many roots on the ground, so she grabbed for the fabric of Luffy's shirt out of reflex to find support. However, that only served to make them both fall to the ground together. And suddenly Vivi was lying on her back…

… with Luffy on top of her.

"—heave ho…?"

Her eyes widening in shock, Vivi looked up at the heavens, not daring to move. Her face was flushed and definitely not from laughing. She felt herself tremble subtly when she felt his hot breath on the sensitive skin of her neck and his warm hand on those few inches of bare skin, right there where her top had rode up a bit. And her heart was beating faster and faster, so loud, so quick, so roughly that she could swear that he was able to hear it or at least _feel it_.

Oh God. Oh God. Oh God. OhGodohGodohGod.

_This is not good, not at all,_ she thought desperately. _And I just can't seem to open my mouth_…

Luffy's laughter died off rather quickly too, still he was the first to snap out of it and wake from that embarrassing silence and numbness. He based himself on his arms to kneel over her and offered a sort of lost-looking smile, but his cheeks were not less red and his smile was also rather unsteady than really honest.

"Heh." It was a word, not a laugh. "Oops. Looks like I went a bit overboard here, eh?"

Vivi remained silent, completely dazed by the fact how close they were. How close his face was. His mouth… and suddenly, she felt that incredible urge inside of her. That confusing, weird, inappropriate, unbecoming urge to just raise her head a few inches and…

_Eh?_

She blinked in bewilderment when she felt his hand touch her cheek and her heart skipped a beat when she saw the look in his eyes. That serious look again, full of meaning. And then he began lowering his head, his eyes were already half-closed, obviously pained by the very same urge, for his mouth was inching closer and closer… she felt her mind going blank… and closer… her eyelids fluttered close… and closer…

And then he gave a threatening growl.

Aw.

… wait a minute, he was _growling_? Why would Luffy be _growling_?

She abruptly opened her eyes to find herself facing his puzzled expression. "Vivi," he said, blinking in total confusion, "did you… did you just _growl_?"

"Do I look like I'd randomly growl around!?" she snapped with flushed cheeks, but then she paused. "Hold on. If you didn't growl and I didn't growl… _who_ did?"

Luffy sat up with a shrug and turned around just in time to see a giant shadow casting over them. He blinked in total bewilderment at the humongous claws gouging into the ground in a relatively short distance, appalled when he saw the scaly green skin and the enormous size of the… _animal_.

"Um." He gulped. "I think I know who growled."

At the sight of those claws – oh damn it, those _claws_ – Vivi's mind immediately went completely blank. Blackout. Void. Belly ache. No, fear. Oh crap. Damn it. Oh God. Holy guardians of Alabasta.

WHAT. THE. HELL. WAS. THAT.

"Oi, you tabby cat," she suddenly heard Luffy say with a threatening voice as he stepped forward to protect her (_Tabby cat_? That thing was obviously a saurian! It had _scales_, got damn it!). "Get lost or I'll kick your ass."

Vivi tore at her hair in despair. _Is he weary of life or something!?_

"Are you insane, Luffy-san!? A madman!? Do you wanna die that bad!?" she shrieked, stricken with fear. She grabbed for his arm in the same moment that he turned around to blink at her puzzled. "Let's just run away! You have no chance winning against _that_ thing!"

The captain puffed his cheeks, obviously offended somehow. "Hah!?" he exclaimed in a huff. "What's that supposed to mean!? That's mere child's play to me! Let's bet how long it'll take me!"

"This is _not_ the right moment to get too big for your boots, Luffy-san!" Vivi's words seemed to have no effect at all. "Let's just get out of here!" She stared at him, begging, frightened. "Please! _Please_!"

Luffy stared back at her in silence, a strange expression on his face. There was a tense silence for a while, the monster was almost forgotten, but when it launched out another horrid growl and bent down to them so that they were on the same height with its yellow, bloodshot (at least _20 damn inches_ big) eye, the princess awakened from her numbness and a dull-sounding scream escaped her throat.

"Lu-Luffy-san," she whispered with a voice hoarse of fear and widened eyes, "_please_ listen to me! Life's not always about whom you're able to beat and whom not or how strong you are! As a leader, it's your obligation to be considerate of those of your comrades who are not as strong as you are! Think about all the possible consequences, will you!" She was almost angry. "If we're goning to die here, then… then…"

_Then Alabasta will go down_, she should have thought, usually.

But much to her surprise, she didn't. The thought that crossed her mind instead was pretty much the last one she would ever have expected. Not because she was selfish or a bad person – it was because the normal case would require to think of Alabasta first above everything else, as a princess. But oddly enough, it was only the second thought haunting her.

The first one was: _Then their dreams will end._

Luffy kept staring at her wordlessly for a few more heartbeats. After a while, a smile crept to his lips, slowly widening to an understanding grin. He nodded in realization.

"You're right. I'm sorry."

Vivi gasped in surprise as she gaped at him, puzzled over the fact that she had convinced him so quickly. He smiled at her and she looked into his eyes that returned her gaze with a strange glint. Something in his eyes immediately calmed her frantically beating heart.

He grinned. "Ready, steady, go."

Vivi barely had the time to blink at him in confusion before he grabbed for her wrist and began to run with her, away from the monster. She stumbled clumsily after the captain and when they brought a considerable distance between them and the monster, an ear piercing animal roar swept through the jungle that scared all birds out of the trees and almost demolished Vivi's ear-drum. The radical, fierce vibration beneath her feet and the loud banging on the ground immediately made her realize that the monster was on their heels – which was why she gave a choked whimper.

"Don't turn around, Vivi." Luffy's voice was oddly calm and collected. "Just run."

She bit her lower lip and nodded, even though she knew that he couldn't see it anyway. But that didn't matter, since there was that question nagging at her conscious – the question _what_ kind of monster exactly that was. It looked like some kind of strange dinosaur, but also totally different somehow. Something had completely destroyed the picture of her average dinosaur. She just couldn't name exactly _what_.

In opposition to Luffy's advice, her curiosity crowed over her sanity and reason as she peeked back at the monster following them with an astounding stamina over her shoulder quickly, glad that they were still a little faster. And what she found there was all the more confusing.

"What the…" she gasped breathlessly. "Is that… is that thing running on _four legs_!?"

"Of course!" said Luffy. "It's a cat after all!"

"How's that thing a _cat_!?"

-- --

While Luffy and Vivi continued to discuss whether that monster was a cat or something else, and also ran away from said monster on their heels a little, they were oblivious to the pair of eyes watching their little marathon from a spot high up on a branch in one of the crowns. The man took a strong sip off his bottle of beer, leaning back against the bole and shaking his head.

"Tch, tch," he murmured quietly to himself. "Not smart. Not smart at all, those two. Why did they have to run away from him in the first place?" He launched out a hushed belch, patting his chest. "They should've just stayed right where they were. He was about to go anyway."

He took a last sip of his beer (it always tasted like an old shoe, but alcohol was alcohol), his stomach answering with an appalled hiccup, before he plunged the bottle back into his pocket and then jumped to stand on the branch.

"I should probably help them out. Killer looked especially hungry today," he said with a grin. "Besides, the girl was pretty cute. It'd be a shame for her to die here."

His grin grew larger as he nodded determinedly, crossing his arms in front of his chest. "Yosh! It's been so long since my last heroic deed and I'm bored anyway. Yup, I'm gonna save them!"

He struck a self-confident pose, which (though the alcohol probably wasn't that innocent either) served to unhinge him, lose his balance and slip off the branch. Fortunately he could wrap his arms around the wood just in time to not fall down. The man threw a glance at the ground and gulped.

"Jeez, that was close," he murmured. "That's it, I'm gonna quit drinking."

-- --

Wheezing, panting, gasping, breathlessness.

Vivi felt like she was burning. Her throat was scratchy and her chest felt like a sizzling volcano. And it _hurt_. It bloody _hurt_. Panting frantically, she squeezed her eyes shut and let Luffy drag her along, no matter where he was leading her, the main thing was that their point of final destination was far, far away from that monster.

"I-is…" she gasped breathlessly and it took her a lot of strength, "… is… i-is it still… running after us?"

Luffy's grasp around her wrist was slippery and moist; God only knew how he managed to still keep such a strong hold on her with his palm sweating so much. "No idea," he said between gasps. "I haven't looked since we started running!"

Vivi didn't know where she found the strength, but she guessed it must have been the last bit she had left as she turned her head around and peeked over her shoulder. Her eyes widened and her throat choked out a hoarse gasp. She stretched out her free hand to grab for Luffy's arm, making them brake abruptly.

"Wait a minute…!"

Panting wildly, the captain stared at her at first, and then he threw a glance at the path they had left behind. He realized in bewilderment that the monster was far and wide nowhere to be seen. He turned his head to the left – nothing. He turned his to the right – nothing.

_Nothing._

"Eh?"

Vivi clasped a hand over her heart in relief, a weary smile forming on her lips. "It's… it's gone…! Thank God!"

Luffy apparently wasn't even anywhere near as relieved as the princess beside him was. On the contrary even. He narrowed his eyes in doubt, furrowing his brows. Something was wrong. He didn't know why, but something was definitely fishy. He just felt it. He felt it as strongly as he felt the hungry feeling inside of his belly.

The monster wasn't gone.

"Wait, Vivi," he said with that uncommon commanding tone he only used once in a blue moon whenever the situation was really dicey. He shoved her with his arm to stand behind him. "Something's wrong here."

"E-eh…?" he heard Vivi murmur in confusion from behind him. "What do you mean, Luffy-san?"

His eyes narrowed even more when a sudden realization struck him like a lightning. He turned his head to look up, heedfully, observant. "Oi." It was unmistakable, this time he knew for sure that his instinct wasn't playing a prank on him. "Did you take your weapon with you yesterday?"

Vivi blinked, obviously oblivious to everything. "Um… yeah, of course. Why do you ask?"

"Keep it ready."

Her eyes widened. "W-why…?"

His eyes were sparkling with anticipation. "Gomu Gomu no…" he murmured, lifting his arm to strike a blow, "… PISTOL!"

The next moment, his arm stretched with such a fast speed that it was impossible for Vivi to see it until it hit one of the many tree tops. She watched in some sort of weird state of shock as his fist disappeared between the branches and leaves and eventually clashed loudly with something hard. Leaves were flying about like an explosion together with pieces of wood that probably derived from the branches when they burst asunder and a body fell to the ground.

"GYAAA!"

Vivi and even Luffy could only stare in pure horror as the body hit the ground and remained lying there motionless. It took a whole minute for the princess to realize that the thing that fell off the tree just now was by no means anywhere near a monster. The face overgrown with a black beard, the long frizzy hair of the same color and the dirty clothes may be daunting in the same way, but still that body lying before them belonged to a…

"… _human_!" cried Vivi dumbfounded. "And you killed him!"

"R-really!?" shouted Luffy, completely befuddled. "Are you sure that it's not just a gorilla!? It looks like a gorilla to me! It's gotta be a gorilla! I say it's a gorilla!"

Vivi was so perplexed that she couldn't think straight anymore, and even took a short trip into Luffy's world of thoughts. "A gorilla!? You're right, it look s like one! It's definitely a gorilla!"

"I'M NOT A GORILLA, DAMN IT!" roared the ape-man suddenly in anger, straightening up.

Luffy and Vivi both immediately became as pale as ashes, shying away with a scream. "WHAAA! ZOMBIE!"

The man with the frizzy beard rubbed his head, loudly cursing over his obviously painful fall. "Ouch… that hit home… Those are pretty interesting devil fruit powers you got there, kiddo."

"See!?" shouted the princess frantically, pointing at the gorilla-man. "It _is_ a human!"

"_Of course_ I'm human," growled the man offended, a blush shining through his black beard and black hair. "Anyway, to come back to your devil fruit powers…" He offered them a grin full of yellow teeth. "Gomu Gomu no Mi, right?"

"That beard!" Luffy exclaimed appalled, pointing at him. "Shave it off! It's _alive_!"

"Are you even listening to me!?" snapped the man, but still brought a hand up to carefully feel his beard. "It's not really alive, right? I mean, sometimes I feel a tickling in there, but I thought it was just a bug or something…"

Luffy grimaced. "Oi, gorilla-ossan, no matter how cool it is to have bugs in your beard, you should take care of your personal hydro, or else goblins will come and get you!"

"What you mean is _hygiene_," Vivi pointed out with a sigh, and then glanced over at the unfamiliar man, trying to suppress her disgust at the bugs inside of his beard. "Besides, there are a lot of much more important things we should talk about right now. For example what you're doing here and who you are and why you were sitting in that tree and why you were watching us, and what-"

The man laughed, warm and sincere. "Whoa, whoa, one thing after the other, cutie."

"_Cutie_?" echoed Vivi, and oddly enough also _Luffy_, in bewilderment.

"First we should maybe find ourselves a more comfortable place than the muddy jungle-ground to continue our talk," said the gorilla-man. "Then I'll answer all of your questions. Let's just quickly get outta here before _that guy_ decides to come back."

Vivi narrowed her eyes. "Who?"

The man opened his mouth to answer, but then he blinked startled at an uncertain point behind them, grinning in embarrassment. "Oops," he said. "Too late, I guess."

The ear-piercing growl following sent a jolt of fear down Vivi's spine that she would never forget in her entire life.

"Don't move. Then he won't see you."

Without listening to the well meant advice (maybe he simply _overheard_ it between the growls), Luffy turned his head around in some kind of reflex. "Whoa! The tabby cat's back!" He was immediately ready for a battle. "Come and get us, you weird-looking pussycat!"

The second growl seemed to stupefy Vivi's ear-drum, leaving behind an obtrusive beeping.

"What the hell's wrong with you, kiddo!?" roared the ape-man furiously and jumped to stand. "Damn it, do children these days not have respect for anything at all!?"

Vivi couldn't react as fast as the man came running in their direction. In the course of the mere blink of an eye, he was before them and pushed herself and Luffy out of the way, murmuring nothing but a quick "Outta my way if you don't wanna die!" as he dashed past them. The next thing she knew was that she fell to the ground with her face landing in the mud, completely petrified with horror. It took her a few heartbeats to realize the pain in her shoulder and the inability to move her arms.

She was… gagged.

_But how!?_, she thought appalled. _Was it that guy!? I didn't even notice anything!_

A glance over at Luffy instantly told her that he wasn't any different. His hands were also tied up, but he apparently didn't even give a tinker's damn about his situation as he was way too busy marvelling at something else (probably his 'tabby cat'). She tried to look for the stranger over her shoulder, but it was completely impossible, not only since there was some mud in her eyes, also because he was totally out of her vision.

_Don't tell me he's gonna abandon us to our fate like THIS!?_

_-- --_

And so that was what had lead to her lying in the mud, gagged and probably with a dislocated shoulder. Threatened by an odd mixture of a saurian and a cat. Abandoned and turned in like an oblation by a complete stranger and the only other human on this godforsaken island. With nothing but a naive, carefree and obviously fearless pirate captain as a fellow sufferer; though suffering was said too much, since she would bet her last Beri that Luffy thought that all this was 'so damn cool'.

Why did it have to be _her_?

"OH HOLY SHIT, THIS IS _WAY_ TOO AWESOME!"

Remember? Exactly: _The Death Sentence_.

But the same moment that Vivi lost all her hope, said her goodbyes to her life and mentally apologized to the people of Alabasta, the chance of a possible rescue burgeoned up somewhere behind her between the ear-piercing growls of the monster.

"Sorry, but I had to tie you guys up," said the gorilla-man. "The brat was about to attack and I couldn't possibly let that happen. You would've died."

"Hey!" she heard Luffy shout offended.

The man laughed. "But you're doing well, kids. Killer's totally confused. Wondering where all those voices are coming from, eh, you bastard?" He grinned at the monster in triumph. "His eyes are like a movement sensor. As long as you don't move, he won't see you. Luck's obviously on your side – he's totally unable to relate sounds to a certain direction."

"K-Killer?" echoed Vivi, her voice hoarse.

"Just wait a bit longer," said the gorilla-man. "He's gonna get bored and leave us alone. He knows when he has to admit defeat. He's gonna accept that."

Vivi's head was spinning, her emotions ran completely riot. This was a little too much for one day. Confusion, fear, questions, confusion, fear, questions. "E-exactly what kind of animal _is_ that?"

"One that ate a devil fruit," answered the man. "And the mixture turned him into a true monster."

There was a snidely animal snort. Shortly after that, Vivi could hear the sound of heavy steps as the monster's claws gouged deeply into the ground, eliciting a small earthquake when he made his way back into the deep jungle, beaten. Vivi had yet still to fully grasp the information she had just heard as the quaking steps became quieter and quieter until they were eventually gone. A devil fruit. So that was why that thing had looked so genetically manipulated. She should have known.

The man gave another laugh. "See? Animals are just way too predictable once you studied their every move for long enough," he said. "I'm gonna untie you guys now."

"Oi, what was that all about, gorilla-ossan?" Luffy complained loudly as the man sliced through the rope around the captain's wrist with a knife. He rubbed his wrists, glaring angrily at the older man. "I could've easily knocked the stuffing outta that thing if you wouldn't have interfered. It didn't look _that_ strong anyway."

"Oh, that much I'm positive of, kiddo," snickered the man. "And that's exactly why I had to tie you up."

"What? I don't get it," said Luffy, furrowing his brows, while the older man took care of Vivi's ties.

The gorilla-man gave sigh, but smiled either way. "Your devil fruit powers are quite impressive, kiddo. I could tell right away that you're pretty strong. You probably would've knocked Killer out with just one single punch," he admitted. "And I couldn't let that happen. Killer is _my_ business. It's _my_ fight. I can't allow you to meddle with my concerns."

Luffy raised his eyebrows, a smile crept to his face. "So you're rivals, right?" The man's laughter was enough of an answer. "You should've just told me right away. I don't steal the fights of other people."

Vivi straightened up, rubbing the hurting spot on her shoulder and wondering what kind of fight that guy was talking about. And why exactly they were fighting against each other. And what kind of devil fruit that thing ate. And why the gorilla-man knew so much about devil fruits anyway. He did know right away what kind of devil fruit powers Luffy had, didn't he? What kind of guy _was_ that?

"Wahahaha!" Luffy burst out laughing, so loud and sudden that Vivi startled a little. "Oh jeez, you look like a mud-pie!"

The princess brought a hand up to touch her mud-covered face, hiding her crimson cheeks. "Sh-shut up! It's not my fault!"

Even the gorilla-man laughed. "Looks like that's _my_ fault. I'm sorry, cutie," he said, standing up. "Let me make up for all this. It's not every day that I have some company, so I'd be very happy to treat you guys to a beer and maybe a steak or something. I have a-"

"STEAK!?" exclaimed Luffy, his eyes sparkling as he jumped to his feet. "We're coming! Right, Vivi?"

Luffy's face of pure excitement came pretty near to one of a fawning little puppy and it was just as cute, which was why Vivi couldn't help but give a small giggle. "Well, I don't drink, but something to eat would be nice indeed," she said. "Besides, there's a lot I still want to ask you."

"I'm gonna tell you everything you wanna know," said the man and grinned like an excited little kid would grin. "I'm just happy that we met. I haven't seen other humans in years, so I'm more than thrilled to welcome you in my humble home!"

Luffy grinned. "Just gimme a lot of meat! I'm starving!" Then, something seemed to occur to him. "Oh right, I'm Luffy by the way!"

Vivi blushed a bit when she realized that she missed to introduce herself. "My name's Vivi," she smiled. "Thank you for saving our lives, sir."

The older one waved it off in embarrassment, offering a grin. "Don't be so formal with me. Just call me Ford." He saluted with a smile. "Nice to meet you guys."

"All right, Ford, so let's get right to the point then," said Luffy, following the man as he began to walk. "Exactly what kinds of bugs are living there inside your beard?"

"Whoa, that's a good question!"

"Is there an Atlas Beetle? I'm looking for that one since forever!"

Vivi followed the two with a smile on her face, relieved to have overcome the shock. Her adrenaline was still running riot, but the whole thing was also incredibly exciting somehow. An adventure. The third exciting adventure in just one week. The third exciting adventure with Luffy. This was what his everyday life looked like. A new adventure day after day, as if there was no worry, no danger, no tomorrow.

"Oi! Stop fumbling about my beard!"

"Oooh! I think I just found a Great Diving Beetle!"

"Um, no. That's just… dirt."

She giggled into her hand in amusement as she watched Luffy. His world was so messy, so unpredictable, so interesting… so fun. Full of life and laughter and without commitments. He was simply free. Free and unworried. And that world of freedom was enviable.

Vivi wished she could be a part of it.

**To Be Continued…**


End file.
